Legislative Assembly of Ontario

The House met at 2 o’clock, p.m.

Prayers.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): Mr. Speaker, I would like to introduce to you and to the House 150 students and five teachers led by Mrs. Ackerman of the Associated Hebrew Schools of the riding of Downsview. With the students are a number of youngsters who have recently come to this country and are studying in that school. Having emigrated successfully from Russia, they are now being educated in Metropolitan Toronto.

Hon. L Bernier (Minister of Natural Resources): Mr. Speaker, I know the members of the Legislature will want to welcome two school groups from northwestern Ontario. One group is in the gallery and is from Evergreen Public School, Kenora. It is led by Mr. Jim Chisholm and Miss Betty Wagner. Earlier today we had a groups of students, sir, from the Pinewood Senior Public School from Dryden, who made a complete tour of the building and enjoyed it very much.

Mr. Speaker: Statements by the ministry.

ORGAN DONOR DECLARATION ON DRIVERS’ LICENCES

Hon. J. R. Rhodes (Minister of Transportation and Communications): Mr. Speaker, as you know, early last October I announced proposed changes in the Ontario drivers’ licence which would enable drivers to make a legal declaration to allow transplantation of human organs immediately after death. This afternoon I can tell the members that my ministry has redesigned the licence form to include a legal declaration which can remain attached to the licence.

A driver who has reached the age of majority has only to indicate his wishes, then sign the declaration. However, there is no obligation to do so. If a driver does not want to become a donor, he may detach and destroy the organ donor attachment of his licence.

Ontario is the first province in Canada to make a donor declaration of this type available with drivers’ licences. We believe it is a positive and progressive step as there are now more than four million drivers in Ontario. Many thousands of these drivers may wish to become potential donors by filling in the declaration supplied with the drivers’ licence, for a donated organ, successfully transplanted, is literally the gift of life for another human being.

Through its Ontario division alone, the Eye Bank of Canada has enabled at least 3,000 people to see again as the result of transplants, and more than 300 single eye transplants a year now take place in this province. Of approximately 250 kidney transplants performed annually throughout Canada, roughly 100 are in Ontario and, as medical science advances, transplants involving other vital organs will become increasingly feasible.

The donor declaration holds great promise for the many people who could benefit from transplants. At present, there are far too few donors, probably because until now no ready way of willing their organs has been so easily available. It is to be hoped that other jurisdictions will follow Ontario’s example in the near future.

In fact, I would like to express my appreciation to the man who played a vital role in bringing the idea of a donor declaration to my attention. He is with us here today in the public gallery -- Dr. George A. deVeber, chairman of the organ donor programme committee of the Kidney Foundation of Canada.

Dr. deVeber, who is highly respected for his work in the field of kidney transplants, is currently director of the dialysis and kidney transplantation programme at the Toronto Western Hospital. He has been responsible for this programme at Toronto Western Hospital since 1965.

By the way, I am going to present the first of the new licenses to Dr. DeVeber immediately after question period just outside the House.

Dr. deVeber and other members of the medical profession are to be highly commended for their work in transplantation and research.

The new licences, with the attached donor declaration, will begin to be distributed this week as part of the normal renewal process based on drivers’ birth dates, as well as when motorists apply for address change. Approximately 60,000 will be going out weekly.

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): Are they going to be bilingual?

Mr. G. Samis (Stormont): Good question.

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Drivers who would like to obtain a donor declaration before the expiry date of their present licences will be able to contact any driver examination centre, or district or regional drivers and vehicles office to obtain a separate declaration form.

Mr. Samis: A bilingual form?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: We sincerely hope that those among the more than four million licensed Ontario drivers who are eligible will use this opportunity to consider taking advantage of the declaration.

Hon. S. B. Handleman (Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations): Mr. Speaker, I would just like to interrupt the order of business --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- to announce to the House that in the gallery to my right --

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Is the member for Ottawa East opposed to this?

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): The minister should listen.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: -- is my distinguished predecessor of many years, a distinguished former member of cabinet --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Order.

Mr. S. Lewis (Scarborough West: Order, Mr. Speaker. Bring the Minister of Transportation and Communications to order.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I have a pleasant announcement to make, and that is that my distinguished predecessor, Mr. Erskine Johnston, is sitting in the gallery to my right, and I would like all members of the House to welcome him back here, even if he is only here for a few minutes.

Mr. J. E. Bullbrook (Sarnia): I did that six months ago when he was here.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: No, I beat the member to it.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Housing.

Hon. D. R. Irvine (Minister of Housing): Mr. Speaker --

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Was this written by the minister’s PR man?

Mr. Lewis: Is this a new $32,000-a-year statement?

Hon. Mr. Irvine: No.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The minister with his statement.

HAMILTON AREA H.O.M.E. PROGRAMME STANDARDS

Hon. Mr. Irvine: The hon. member for Wentworth asked on April 28 about a reorganization of our staff in the HOME plan, as it involves his area, and whether or not the change was inspired by a request from the Hamilton area builders for less stringent inspections.

I want to inform all the hon. members that the southwest region inspection staff has been reorganized, but this was carried out in the interest of improving the inspection services for the Hamilton area -- not diminishing them, as the hon. member for Wentworth had suggested. This region covers municipalities west of Metro Toronto, south of a line through Goderich.

Our HOME lot activity throughout this region has increased to such an extent that a separate inspection unit, headed by a senior inspector, was created to serve the Hamilton area. Outside Hamilton there are seven HOME subdivisions under way and four housing action projects.

The changes we have made enable the senior inspector, who formerly had Hamilton as one of his responsibilities, to concentrate on serving the balance of this region.

Where formerly we had one senior inspector and a staff of eight inspectors in all of the west region, we now have two senior inspectors and a staff of 10 inspectors. A senior inspector and four inspectors cover the Hamilton area, while the original west region senior inspector and six other inspectors are responsible for the balance of southwestern Ontario.

The hon. member for Wentworth asked whether Hamilton builders had asked for the removal of the original senior inspector because he was too tough.

Mr. Lewis: He is clairvoyant.

Hon. Mr. Irvine: While the president of the Metropolitan Hamilton House Builders Association wrote to the chairman of OHC’s board of directors in January complaining about OHC’s inspection procedures -- and that included some criticism of the staff -- there was no suggestion that the senior inspector should be replaced. At a subsequent meeting between OHC staff and Hamilton builders, misunderstandings about our administrative procedures were cleared up at that time.

Comments by builders had no bearing on the reorganization, which was necessitated by building activity and our upgraded inspection services. A similar reorganization was carried out in eastern Ontario about a month ago. It is standard OHC practice to rotate inspection staff in order that they may maintain their objectivity to all of the inspections.

Mr. Speaker, I want to assure the member for Wentworth that we will ensure that inspections in the future are carried out to the best of our ability.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Health.

HEALTH SURVEY OF ELLIOT LAKE MINERS

Hon. F. S. Miller (Minister of Health): Mr. Speaker, on Dec. 10, last year, I tabled a report on the survey conducted by the Ministry of Health of the working environment at the uranium mines in Elliot Lake. At that time I said a report would soon be available giving the results of the medical study on 973 uranium workers at Elliot Lake who had been given comprehensive chest examinations as part of a voluntary survey.

Let me briefly summarize the findings of that limited study. Of the 973 miners examined, 23 were found to have silicosis and another 47 showed pre-silicotic dust effects. Health tests showed the miners with silicosis were still in quite good general health and had lung performance equal to the average that would be expected of a healthy individual of the same height and age.

Without question, though, those with silicosis should be encouraged to move out of a high silica area, and those showing pre-silicotic dust effects should be similarly counselled -- particularly those in the younger age groups.

Members will note that I referred to this study as being a limited one. It was comprehensive, in that it included about 93 per cent of the men employed underground and in the surface crushing and mill operations during the six-week period from Feb. 17 to March 30, 1974. It was conducted in accordance with a procedure arrived at by consultation with representatives of management and labour.

Let me emphasize that the purpose of the survey was to ascertain as factually as possible the proportion of miners in an identified situation and within a specific time frame, among whom signs or early indications of silicosis were detectable.

The study did not include the large population who had had exposure to the uranium mining environment in the past, but were no longer in the vicinity. However, if signs of silicosis were detected among the miners in the survey, it follows that those others would also have been at varying degrees of risk.

It has, however, been on the basis of the difference between the survey results and the overall number of people at risk that a discrepancy in the survey figures has been suggested.

We have no reason to attempt to minimize the potential total extent of damage inflicted. To provide as complete a picture as can be obtained, I have delayed presentation of this report in order to include additional data.

Workmen’s Compensation Board records show that, of miners known to have had one or more months’ exposure to the uranium mining environment at Elliot Lake, Bancroft or both, but not employed at Elliot Lake at the end of 1973, 91 have silicosis and 244 have pre-silicotic dust effects.

Quebec Workmen’s Compensation records show that, of the miners known to have been employed at Elliot Lake and subsequently x-rayed in the Quebec mining industry, 20 have silicosis and two have dust effects.

Additionally, to present as complete a report as possible, a summary of the significant chest x-ray findings of those who did not participate in the voluntary survey has been obtained from the records of the Ontario Workmen’s Compensation Board. This has added another 13 men with silicosis and six with dust effects.

This, then, gives a total of 147 cases of silicosis and 299 cases of dust effects that are known to exist as of March 26, 1975.

Mr. E. W. Martel (Sudbury East): The minister should fire his whole staff.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: Fire the whole Natural Resources Ministry. That Natural Resources Ministry should resign en masse.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Those are the figures that will be found in the report I am tabling now. The report outlines the method and procedures followed and the population surveyed, and also contains the result of chest x-ray, lung function tests and a lung disease questionnaire. A summary of the findings appears at the end of the report.

Mr. Lewis: Thank God this man appeared on the scene.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, members will understand that the test procedures specified in the report were those followed for the 973 miners included in the original voluntary survey. For the other cases now included, we necessarily have only limited statistical data from the respective sources.

My colleagues, the Minister of Labour and the Minister of Natural Resources, have assured me that corrective steps are already being taken to involve those directly affected in the Elliot Lake area. I understand they are prepared to speak to this action at this time.

Mr. Lewis: If we leave it to Natural Resources, they’ll all be dead.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Labour.

ASSISTANCE TO ELLIOT LAKE MINERS

Hon. J. P. MacBeth (Minister of Labour): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In response to the findings of the Ministry of Health in its studies at Elliot Lake, an interministerial committee composed of representatives of the ministries of Health, Labour and Natural Resources and the Workmen’s Compensation Board have been giving urgent consideration to the special problems of workers in the Elliot Lake uranium mines.

The royal commission on health and safety in the mines is studying the entire mining industry and will eventually be making industry-wide recommendations. The steps I am now announcing are being taken without prejudice to the ongoing work of the royal commission. I am pleased to announce that the government has adopted a number of measures to assist those workers who have been adversely affected by exposure employment in Elliot Lake and which will also have impact on an industry-wide basis.

Workers who have been diagnosed as silicotic and have been awarded compensation will be actively encouraged to leave exposure employment to seek employment either underground in other low silica operations or in other fields of employment.

Mr. Martel: No other mines will hire them.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: To assist these workers during the transition period, the Workmen’s Compensation Board will pay compensation based on the difference in earnings and will, in addition, provide rehabilitation and retraining allowances. Where resettlement in another community anywhere in Canada is necessary, a grant will also be paid as a rehabilitation measure.

Mr. Lewis: Well, it’s a start.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Where necessary to provide an equitable temporary income during the transitional period, the compensation and rehabilitation allowances may be stacked rather than integrated and may, in combination, exceed regular compensation for temporary total disability. After those workers diagnosed as silicotic have exercised their option to leave exposure employment, those who are classed as having significant dust effects, but not silicosis, will also be encouraged to seek non-exposure work. While these workers are not disabled and will not, therefore, be entitled to receive disability compensation --

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): They are being blacklisted.

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: -- they will be entitled to substantial rehabilitation assistance allowances, including retraining and resettlement elsewhere.

It is recognized that some miners earn in excess of the existing $12,000 ceiling on earnings under the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Mr. Speaker, the government presently has under review revisions to the Workmen’s Compensation Act. Among them there is one that has already been approved, namely, to increase the $12,000 ceiling to $15,000. That has been approved in principle to facilitate higher levels of compensation benefits. An appropriate amendment will be presented to the Legislature as soon as possible. To encourage the re-employment of Elliot Lake skilled underground workers in other mines, the board is prepared to guarantee that any future cost of claims arising from chest disease in such workers will not be charged to the new employer.

Concerning radiation exposure and after consideration of an earlier report of the Ministry of Health, where a worker’s exposure in any one year exceeds a total of four working level months and, as a result, he leaves exposure employment for the balance of the year, the Workmen’s Compensation Board will consider him on medical certification as being temporarily partially disabled. The appropriate compensation benefit will be paid until he can return to exposure employment.

Mr. Martel: Why partially?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Where a worker’s lifetime radiation exposure exceeds 120 working level months, he will be considered on the same basis as those workers with significant dust effects and will receive the same entitlement.

It is my belief that the implementation of these proposals will be of significant benefit in providing equitably for the workers in Elliot Lake who have been adversely affected by exposure employment in the uranium mines. Insofar as the Ministry of Labour is concerned, action will be taken as quickly as possible.

HEALTH AND SAFETY HAZARDS AT ELLIOT LAKE

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, you have heard the statements of my two colleagues speaking of the report on the health of miners at Elliot Lake. As you are aware, this is the third report to do with the Elliot Lake mines.

Earlier, there was a report on radiation effects and a survey of dust-radiation-diesel exhaust levels in the uranium mines and mills at Elliot Lake. Perhaps it would be well to state the conclusions of these reports. There are four in total:

1. In both the Denison and Rio Algom mines, radon daughter levels were considered to be under satisfactory control.

2. In both mines, diesel exhaust levels were considered to be under satisfactory control.

3. In both mines there exist exposures in excess of the TLV for crystalline silica. The reasons for this were stated to be “not clearly understood.” Here I should define TLV, or threshold limit value, as being “time-weighted concentrations for a seven- or eight-hour work day or 40-hour week. They should not be used as fine lines between safe and dangerous concentrations.” This is the definition, sir, used by the American Conference of Government Industrial Hygienists.

4. Company measurements in 1973, when compared with the results of the Ministry of Health survey, support the view that company measurements, in recent times at least, are valid.

Present dust levels in the mines are significantly below those present in the 1950s and early 1960s. The reduction in radon daughter counts in the period of 1965 to 1975 has been dramatic and is also indicative of related improvements in dust levels. While these improvements have been made and are continuing, some dust levels in the mines still exceed desirable levels.

Silicosis is a condition that normally takes many years to develop so that the hazards of present levels of exposure, while not immediate, cannot be allowed to continue. My engineers have been investigating measures that might be taken to lower dust counts within the mines. Regrettably, sir, I have to report that the traditional method of dust control in the mines, by provision of greater quantities of fresh air at the working place, has already reached the technical limits of feasibility.

We need better ways to test and determine accurately the dust exposure of each miner and portable personal equipment to supply him with filtered air when he is in a dust exposure above the acceptable TLV.

Mr. Martel: The government has been going to do that for a year now.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: The problem is that today all jurisdictions have perceived the situation at about the same time; personal dust samplers and personal air hoods, now under development, are under great risk of early obsolescence. The demand for the units now in production has exceeded the supply, both in Europe and in the United States. The Canadian production capacity is very limited.

My staff has reviewed the situation and concluded that while dust levels are unsatisfactory in some areas, generally speaking the risk has been greatly reduced --

Mr. Lewis: That’s the problem with the minister’s staff; they never understand what is happening.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: His entire staff should retire to another ministry.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: -- and by the use of dust masks and hoods in high dust exposure occupations, personal risk can be minimized until such time as more acceptable equipment is available. Accordingly, Mr. Speaker, the following actions have been taken:

1. Personal gravimetric testing of all occupations will be repeated to establish those occupations where there is any significant probability of exposures above the 0.1 mg per cu m of TLV for respirable silica. Companies are being instructed to procure and supply dust hoods for independent air supplies for all such workers. In the intervals until they are available, all workers in these classes will be required to wear approved dust masks.

2. Mines have been instructed to post ventilation plans showing in detail the individual exposure at each working place. This will require posting of general and specific ventilation plans with explanatory information. The schedule for installation of the new ventilation system to double the air supply at Denison Mines has been reviewed by my staff. Progress on this project will be closely reviewed to confirm that everything possible is being done to place this system in service on or before July 1 next.

3. We have required the installation of improved and more copious use of water sprays on sources of dust generation.

4. My ministry has placed an additional mining engineer in Elliot Lake who has begun a review in detail on the efficiency and effectiveness of diesel maintenance programmes.

5. Instructions have been issued to the mines to raise the standards of auxiliary ventilation. Fans and tubing shall be arranged to provide a minimum of 100 cu ft per mm of fresh air per diesel horsepower in each working heading. Also, the necessary volume of air to effect the removal of dust and exhaust fumes will be supplied to within 75 ft of the working face at all times in the future.

6. As of April 4, on special instructions, section 164, clause 2b of part IX of the Mining Act, no longer applies to uranium mines. The effect of this direction is that no overtime work in excess of eight hours per week per man in any dust exposure or radon daughter exposure area either underground or on surface will be allowed in uranium mines.

7. We have initiated procedures to improve the reports on radon daughter exposure. My engineers, as heretofore, are monitoring the exposure of uranium miners to radon daughters on a quarterly basis. Should any workman be detected to have encountered a four-working-level-month exposure within a calendar year, the company will be advised to remove that man from exposure for the balance of that calendar year.

In addition, my ministry has begun a programme of reviewing all the early records to establish with the greatest accuracy possible, the lifetime exposure of each workman in Elliot Lake. Any workman who is found to have reached a lifetime-working-level exposure will be advised to seek other employment and to remove himself from the exposure, with rehabilitation benefits to be established by the Ministry of Labour.

I might add here, Mr. Speaker, that in spite of the claims made by the hon. member for Scarborough West, the investigation conducted by my engineers did not show that any workman in Elliot Lake has reached the 3.5-working-level-month exposure this year to date. Further checking is currently being conducted to determine the actual overtime worked and the actual working-level-month exposure of each workman. If there are any infractions, or any over-exposures, we will make an immediate disclosure and take the necessary action.

I might also add in response to the question from the hon. member for Sudbury East regarding the individual ventilation package utilized in Sweden, that we would be very happy to have them here. In fact, the Canadian version has been under test at Texasgulf Mines and Denison Mines for over a month. The problem, as I have said before, is not a question of desire, but a question of availability of supply. Nevertheless, the position taken by my ministry will be to require the mining companies to secure an adequate supply of approved devices.

I would also like to report to the House that my ministry has in hand the recruitment of the necessary staff to ensure that the ventilation conditions in the mines are adequately monitored. We do not propose or pretend that we will have the capacity to do all of the ventilation measurements.

We do propose, however, to have the capacity to move regularly into all mining operations and monitor the standard of ventilation measurements being taken by the company personnel. In any cases of major concern, discrepancy or dispute, the Ministry of Health will be asked to conduct a complete review.

Finally, I am pleased to report the appointment of a chief mining engineer, a chief electrical-mechanical engineer, and a chief ventilation engineer, who will be staff consultants. These members of our staff will be located at Sudbury. Their role will be to provide specialized technical support for engineers, to see that actions and programmes are initiated to ensure every action is taken to assure the safest possible working conditions for workmen in the mines, both underground and on the surface.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, as pointed out by my colleague, the Minister of Labour -- and I too would like to make it very clear -- these changes and announcements on the general subject of mines and safety in no way restrict or alter the responsibilities or mandate of the Royal Commission on the Health and Safety of Workers in Mines. Indeed, the commissioner is at liberty to review and recommend on the appropriateness or adequacy of the measures announced today.

Mr. Speaker: Oral questions.

The hon. member for Kitchener.

ASSISTANCE TO ELLIOT LAKE MINERS

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Mr. Speaker, following that trilogy of statements, I’m wondering if the Minister of Labour can advise us what is going to be done in the way of providing alternative employment, particularly for those who are in the pre-silicotic stage -- the 45 persons who were referred to -- and whether something more than just counselling is going to exist as an alternative with in the area, so that the lives of these workers will not continue to be gambled with, as has occurred in the past?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, we hope to find other employment above ground for those who were in the pre-silicotic stage. We are prepared to relocate them with transportation costs and to give them training and things of that nature if that will help them. For the main part, we want to encourage them to get out of the mines because to all intents and purposes they are still physically able people and for that matter should not have too much difficulty in finding other employment. There is a possibility they might go into other non-silicotic mines, but since the have received no impairment to their ability to work there would not be any payments in that way but mainly in relocation and retraining.

Mr. Lewis: I have a supplementary.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West.

Mr. Lewis: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, there are a number of questions that come to mind. Since silica dust causes silicosis and radiation causes lung cancer, why is the minister not treating those who have radiation exposure in the same way as he is treating those who have silica dust exposure in terms of immediate removal, compensation and relocation?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, that may be more properly a question of the Minister of Health. My understanding is that these standards are set up and they should not go beyond them in any one period. Once they have reached that standard, we are prepared to move in and do the same for them as for the pre-silicotic men.

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister mean he will wait until they are endangered?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, I think anybody who is working in these mines is subject to a certain amount of danger by the very fact that he is in those mines. That is the problem. I think if the member would re-address that question to the Minister of Health, he may be able to tell the member.

Mr. Lewis: I’ll ask him.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River with a supplementary?

Mr. T. P. Reid (Rainy River): A supplementary of the Minister of Labour: Will any of these extra costs incurred in the increased compensation payments, relocation and so on be charged back to the mines concerned or will they be borne by the general taxpayers and the revenues of Workmen’s Compensation?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Sir, it would be under the general revenues of the Workmen’s Compensation Board and charged to industry. I have no thought that it would be charged other than through the Workmen’s Compensation Board.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary, the member for Sudbury East.

Mr. Martel: Did I understand the minister correctly when he said that if a worker had to leave the work place for health reasons, only a partial disability allowance would be paid and not the total disability allowance?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, yes, it would be the difference of his pay. In other words, if one of the silicotics moved above ground, the board would make up the difference in his pay under the regular Workmen’s Compensation Board scheme.

Mr. Lewis: The total difference or 75 per cent?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: No, 75 per cent under the regular scheme.

Mr. Lewis: Yes, 75 per cent. The government always penalizes them for being in ill-health.

Mr. Singer: It’s tax free.

Mr. Lewis: Tax free? Thank you very much.

Mr. Martel: What would happen to the man who was taken out and couldn’t find work? Would he be compensated as temporarily totally disabled?

Mr. Lewis: What are they supposed to do? Thank the government for not taxing them?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear the question.

Mr. Martel: If the worker was taken out for medical reasons and the minister couldn’t find alternative employment, in the interim would he receive a temporary total disability allowance?

Hon. Mr. MacBeth: Mr. Speaker, if he is taken out because of his medical condition, until he was fit to go back again he would receive the regular Workmen’s Compensation award as he presently does. I don’t think there is anything new or different there.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kitchener.

LIQUOR LEGISLATION

Mr. Breithaupt: A question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations with respect to a comment appearing in the April 14 issue of Marketing which deals with the programme of alcohol abuse the Minister of Health is dealing with: Can the minister comment on the report given by Jack Harris, the deputy chief commissioner of the LCBO, who acknowledged that the government’s action on booze problems was superficial and politically motivated -- especially since Mr. Harris is a former member of this House and might have some knowledge as to what is political motivation?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I have checked with the vice-chairman of the board on that statement. He denies it categorically. He says he never did say it and never would say it.

Mr. Bullbrook: Don’t take that lying down.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. Roy: The minister wouldn’t agree with it.

PORTRAYAL OF VIOLENCE BY COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY

Mr. Breithaupt: I have a question of the Chairman of Management Board, who had escaped but is returning to his seat.

Hon. E. A. Winkler (Chairman, Management Board of Cabinet): I tried to escape.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is a question with respect to the commission dealing with violence in the communications industry. Can the minister advise us exactly when the terms of reference for that commission will be clearly before us, since by the Premier’s statement on April 14 the violence with which he was concerned was notably in films and on television, but in the release of May 6 dealing with the appointment of two further persons it is stated the commission “will investigate the possible harm to society of the increasing exploitation of violence in the print, television and film media”? Since print seems to have come into it for the first time, can we know exactly what these terms of reference will be?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I think the Premier has been very careful in bringing into the structure the right people. I think on examination the hon. member will find that to be correct. When the structure is completely in place, I am quite sure he will be willing to inform the House what the terms of reference are.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions? A supplementary.

Mr. Lewis: How does Management Board arrive at these per diems of $250 a day for Judy LaMarsh and $180 a day for Scott Young? Does that not do the minister violence to approve $180 a day?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: I’m serious about the question. How does the minister arrive at it?

Mr. Speaker: It’s a good question but the original question had to do with the terms of reference.

Mr. Breithaupt: This was going to be the supplementary. I was going to ask, in any event, as to the cost of the commission. I’m wondering if the minister would choose to answer and as well advise us as to the comment that, since Judge Beaulieu apparently receives in the neighbourhood of $27,000 per year, that per diem cost as well would be added in, since the judge would not be otherwise able to do his normal tasks.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: That, of course, is not quite correct, because in those particular cases appointees to such work as that apply their efforts without remuneration. In regard to the other question of the leader of the NDP --

Mr. Lewis: He is going to be off the bench.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: -- the guidelines for the payment of members of the commission are in accordance with their responsibilities on the commission.

Mr. Lewis: Well, that is utter claptrap. Who is worth $250 a day?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Wentworth.

Mr. M. Cassidy (Ottawa Centre): That is more than some people make in a week in this province.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kitchener had a supplementary and the member for Wentworth has one now.

Mr. Deans: Thank you. Given the reported backlog of cases waiting to be heard by judges across the province, how can the government afford to take a judge off the bench and sit him on a commission at this particular point in time?

Mr. Breithaupt: Well, that’s my point, of course.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Watch TV.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Obviously, he has accepted that responsibility.

Mr. Deans: But how can he accept it? The province doesn’t have enough judges now. We have people standing waiting for years.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River with a supplementary.

Mr. Reid: Supplementary. Can the minister tell us what the whole commission is going to cost us? What’s the total cost?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I can’t at this particular time, Mr. Speaker, but I will as soon as I have the opportunity.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. That question was asked previously.

Mr. Cassidy: It is more than $1,000 a day.

Mr. Bullbrook: By way of supplementary, if the criterion for the payment of salaries is the degree of responsibility assumed, how much is the minister’s salary this year?

Hon. A. Grossman (Provincial Secretary for Resources Development): Five per cent less than it was last year.

Mr. Bullbrook: How much is it going to be?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West with a supplementary.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: My hon. friend has put it in its proper perspective. It is five per cent less than last year.

Mr. Bullbrook: What about the tax deduction?

Mr. Lewis: Has the Minister of Community and Social Services (Mr. Brunelle) informed the Chairman of Management Board that there is a former faithful employee of his ministry who now receives $185.05 a month as a permanently unemployable person who was turned down for a disability pension under the GAINS programme of $240 a month, and does it strike the minister as fair that this woman should not receive $55 more a month from the government while he announces the payment to Scott Young of $180 a day?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: Mr. Speaker, I haven’t been informed exactly of the circumstances. Maybe I can find that information out from my friend. But there are other people in society as well who are paid in accordance with their qualifications. Maybe the member should inquire within his own family.

Mr. Lewis: What qualifications?

Mr. J. H. Jessiman (Fort William): How about the member’s brother? How about his wife?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is there a new question by the member for Kitchener?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Scarborough West has a question now.

Mr. Lewis: Well, I hesitate almost to ask.

Mr. Deans: I want to know.

Mr. Lewis: I hesitate to ask, but my colleagues are wondering, what is the minister talking about?

Hon. Mr. Winkler: I would like to know, if the member wants to divulge to the House the answer to the question, what his father works for, for instance?

An hon. member: For the union.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: It seems to me we have diverged quite a distance from the original question. The member for Scarborough West with his question.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of privilege, David Lewis, at this moment -- speaking to the King of Romania -- David Lewis makes a professor’s or lecturer’s salary at Carleton. And I want to tell you something on the point of privilege, Mr. Speaker. David Lewis is not so corrupted that he’d accept that kind of per diem for this kind of nonsensical job.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lewis: I have answered the minister’s question, but I doubt he will answer my question; and I won’t engage in this nonsense.

Hon. Mr. Winkler: What does it pay him, tell us that?

Mr. Lewis: Does the minister want to know what my mother makes?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. It seems to me that the questions are flowing in the wrong direction here.

Mr. Lewis: Some people would not engage in the nonsense that the minister engages in.

Mr. Bullbrook: I think he is sorry he asked that.

Mr. Speaker: Would the member for Scarborough West proceed with his questions? Thank you.

Mr. Breithaupt: He wouldn’t take it for any price.

Mr. Lewis: He wouldn’t touch it for a plugged nickel, which is all the minister is capable of.

Mr. G. Nixon (Dovercourt): Try him.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Scarborough West.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: It is more lively than I anticipated, Mr. Speaker.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order please. The member for Scarborough West.

HEALTH SURVEY OF ELLIOT LAKE MINERS

Mr. Lewis: I want to ask the Minister of Health: Given the 75 to 80 per cent of the readings now in the mines of Elliot Lake which are over the acceptable threshold limit value, is the minister satisfied that the workers can work in safety from here on in those conditions under the devices indicated by the Minister of Natural Resources, since it has been five successive ministries of Mines and Natural Resources which accounts for the nearly 450 men now with silicosis or pre-silicotic conditions? How does he trust them?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, the question as to the safety of the mines at the present time is still somewhat in doubt, and we wouldn’t argue that. I think we pointed out in the body of the report that we issued, there is no way that we can be sure for several more years the steps taken 15 years ago have, in fact, proved to be as effective as they seem to be.

At the present moment we are encouraged by the fact that only one person, insofar as I can tell in that report, has been shown to have developed silicosis as a worker who entered after 1960. Traditionally in the mines of Ontario it takes, what, 23 years for the incubation period. And yet within the uranium mines it’s been traditionally a shorter time.

Mr. Martel: That’s right.

Mr. Lewis: It has been 15 or 16 years.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Yes, so we are beginning to feel that the steps taken were good. At the same time, the minister has indicated today that improvements in both the watering and the air circulation of the mines are being required of the mines. This will improve today’s conditions even more. I think he can talk to that better than I. I can only say that certainly the member for Algoma-Manitoulin (Mr. Lane) who has --

Mr. Martel: Oh, he did nothing throughout all of this.

Hon. Mr. Miller: That’s wrong.

Mr. Martel: So don’t come in with that crap now.

Hon. Mr. Miller: That’s wrong. If one judges the work he does --

Mr. Martel: He was so far away from Elliot Lake it was not even funny. Don’t postulate now on his behalf.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Miller: If one judges the work he does by the noise made in the House --

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. Mr. Miller: The hon. member can’t listen and talk.

Mr. Martel: I don’t want to hear that kind of nonsense. He went there last December for the first time.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Miller: That member has quietly and patiently worked with me and other ministers in an attempt to improve the situation.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

Mr. Ruston: Very quietly.

Mr. Roy: His time is up.

SUDBURY MINE EMISSIONS

Mr. Lewis: I want to ask two related questions. I want to ask the Minister of Natural Resources: Is he aware that tomorrow up to 100 members of the Mine Workers’ union in Sudbury intend to picket the Natural Resources office in that city because of his ministry’s refusal to maintain the emissions of SO₂ at reasonable or safe levels in Falconbridge? Was he aware that that is about to happen?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister aware that Mr. Caron of his staff was called in two weeks ago to do some testing? The SO₂ at the time read 65 parts per million. The men in that place were vomitting, had bloody noses. To this day, despite the minister’s promise of two years ago, there is still no progress.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Is this a question?

Mr. Martel: This is a question. What do you think it is?

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Lewis: How does the minister justify it?

Mr. Martel: To this time -- two years after the minister’s promise -- the ministry has still not laid down the criteria on which men will be taken out of areas of over-exposure, particularly to that amount. Now what is the minister going to do about it?

Mr. Lewis: Sixty-five parts per million; and they are allowed five parts.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Knowing of the member’s comments in the past, his over-exaggeration of the situation, I will ask --

Mr. Martel: Over-exaggeration?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Over-exaggeration, that’s right.

Mr. Martel: There are 450 men involved; is that over-exaggeration?

Mr. Lewis: They all are on the minister’s conscience.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I will ask for a full report. I will examine the situation myself.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary: Would the minister tell me what he intends to do, since there was no action despite his assurance of two years ago that men would be taken out of the area of over-exposure and that there would be criteria laid down? Can the minister tell me when he is going to act to ensure that comes about?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I tried to answer the question but the member was so busy talking he didn’t hear me, so he will have to read it in Hansard.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Scarborough West. Further questions.

WORKING CONDITIONS AT CHROMASCO

Mr. Lewis: A question of the Minister of Natural Resources: How is it that in March of 1974 the ministry’s inspector, G. E. Thomas, P.Eng., regional mines engineer, knew of the situation of the Chromasco Corp. -- better known as Chromalux in eastern Ontario -- yet in all the months of dust exposure and dust damage that followed, nothing happened from this ministry? How is it that the union had to make a presentation to the Ham commission, and how is it that to this day, more than a year later, although directives have been posted nothing substantial has occurred in the Chromasco Corp.?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Again, Mr. Speaker, I will take this under advisement and do a personal check and review of all the facts that were brought before this particular inspector.

An hon. member: He wants to wash the blood off.

Mr. Martel: The minister promised that three years ago.

Mr. Lewis: Would the minister consider putting the entire mines inspection branch’s resignation under advisement to this Legislature?

An hon. member: Including his own.

An hon. member: Including the government.

Mr. Speaker: Any further questions?

The member for Sarnia.

HYDRO RATES

Mr. Bullbrook: I would like, through you, to ask a question of the Minister of Energy. It being a week ago today that I inquired about the excessive billing by Ontario Hydro Commission, could the minister let me have a report? Second, has he made any decision on the appointment on a board of review? Third, has the minister had any information from Hydro that it would cost them approximately $275,000 in handling and mailing to rebate the excess millions they have taken from the public?

Hon. D. R. Timbrell (Minister of Energy): Mr. Speaker, lumping all three questions together I have not concluded my investigation of the member’s allegations. When I do I will give him an answer.

Mr. Bullbrook: By way of supplementary, can we be assured that the minister is not going to rely on Ontario Hydro to judge themselves?

Hon. Mr. Timbrell: Absolutely, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Roy: Who else is going to do it?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Lakeshore.

NEW TOWN IN LAKESHORE RIDING

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This is a shotgun question, not because of many parts but because there are many ministers involved -- the Minister of Housing, the Minister of Government Services (Mr. Snow) -- but I want to direct the questions --

Mr. Speaker: Aim it at one.

Mr. Lawlor: -- because he is under fire today, to the Minister of Natural Resources.

When does the minister propose to answer a letter I sent to all you ginks on April 25 having to do with the proposed development by S. B. McLaughlin Enterprises to build a town of 15,000 people at the east end of my riding -- my new riding? Why hasn’t the minister replied? What is going on?

I indicated it was urgent. The matter is coming before the Municipal Board.

Hon. Mr. Grossman: Been nominated yet?

Mr. Breithaupt: It’s not the hon. member’s yet.

Mr. Speaker: Is there an answer?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Any day.

Mr. Lawlor: No answer?

Mr. Lewis: Come on you gink, answer.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, what did he call me?

Mr. Lewis: As a matter of fact I am not sure; I paraphrased what I heard.

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Well, ask him to withdraw that statement. I have a few names I would like to call him too, but I wouldn’t have the discourtesy --

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please, the hon. minister has the floor.

Mr. Lewis: On a point of personal privilege, it is the nicest epithet I have applied to the minister in more than a year, as a matter of fact.

Mr. Speaker: Does the minister have an answer?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I will refrain from saying what I think of the member for Scarborough West. There will be another occasion.

Mr. Lawlor: Does the minister answer his letters or not?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes sir, the member’s letter will be answered in due course.

Mr. Lawlor: A supplementary question: Does the ministry, or any of the other two -- and they can answer on their own -- intend to make any intervention on the hearing that is taking place on June 2 before the Ontario Municipal Board in connection with this development, which is gross?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Mr. Speaker, I will have to check with my staff and get all the facts and details before I can comment on that.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Waterloo North.

PYRAMID SALES SCHEMES

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations: Has the ministry had time to investigate the complaint that Best Mine Ecology Centre in twin cities is operating as a pyramid type of operation? This was given to him about three weeks ago.

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, as I understand it there is an inquiry into pyramid operations being made by the registrar and I have not yet received the report on that.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury East.

HEALTH AND SAFETY HAZARDS AT ELLIOT LAKE

Mr. Martel: A question of the Minister of Natural Resources: Did I understand him to say that the company would still be allowed to have eight hours of overtime per week? During a 40-hour week they would still be allowed to have eight hours of overtime?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: Yes, that’s correct, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Martel: Supplementary question: Under what conditions would that come about? Just simply for production, or emergency, or what? Under what circumstances?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: That is applied to all uranium mines. None will be allowed to have workers work more than eight hours overtime in any one week.

Mr. Martel: Final supplementary: Has the ministry calculated at what stage it would bring a man to the four-work-month levels if he worked eight hours of overtime weekly? How many months would it be before he reached the maximum which he could be exposed to?

Hon. Mr. Bernier: I am not aware of the actual figures in the calculation, Mr. Speaker, but I am told this is the maximum figure that will give us the longest period of time before any work levels would be broken.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Huron-Bruce.

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS FOR SALES TAX

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Revenue. In view of the excellent presentation put forward by the Professional Sales Tax Consultants Ltd. in relation to the statute of limitations and the unfairness of the limitations application, would the minister reconsider the matter to the extent of establishing a cutoff date several months hence?

Hon. A. K. Meen (Minister of Revenue): Mr. Speaker, I am not sure that I am aware of the presentation the hon. member refers to. I think I would want to take a look at that and I would have to consult the Treasurer, because this sort of thing, as the hon. member probably realizes, is a question for the Treasurer as well as for myself.

Mr. Gaunt: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: If the minister so desires, I can redirect it to the Treasurer.

Mr. R. S. Smith (Nipissing): He doesn’t know either.

Mr. Gaunt: Would the Treasurer consider applying the statute of limitations several months hence, in view of the obvious difficulties which the application is now causing?

Hon. W. D. McKeough (Treasurer and Minister of Intergovermnental Affairs): I am sorry, I didn’t hear the first part of the question.

Mr. Speaker: Would the member repeat the question?

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Speaker, in view of the excellent presentation given by the Professional Sales Tax Consultants Ltd. -- it was addressed to the Treasurer, I believe, two weeks ago -- in which they pointed out the unfairness of the statute of limitations as announced in the budget, would he reconsider the matter to the extent of establishing a cutoff date several months hence?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Gaunt: Supplementary: In view of the fact that the sales tax offices across the Province of Ontario, as of April 4, were telling people who inquired that applications would be accepted, processed and approved back to Sept. 1, 1961, doesn’t the Treasurer consider that this particular matter is being dealt with in a very unfair manner?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: No, Mr. Speaker. I think “being told” is perhaps not quite the correct term. It was suggested to them by the Professional Sales Tax Collectors -- or whatever they are called -- who were out soliciting this kind of work. I think there are two sides to this story. In any case, the Legislature debated this point in the Retail Sales Tax Act and it was passed into law.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Sudbury.

SUDBURY HOSPITAL FACILITIES

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Speaker, if I could get the attention of the Minister of Health, I would like to ask the minister if moneys have yet been appropriated for the expansion programme planned at Princess Margaret Hospital?

Hon. Mr. Miller: In Toronto?

Mr. Germa: Yes.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Yes, they have.

Mr. Germa: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Did the minister not take into consideration that in 1973 there were 688 cancer patients from Sudbury, Sault Ste. Marie and North Bay? And did the minister not take into consideration that two aldermen in ward 6 rejected the expansion? And did the minister not take into consideration the Peat Marwick study which recommended a foundation outside of Metropolitan Toronto before he made that appropriation?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I made that appropriation in response to a request from the Ontario Cancer Foundation, which made a thorough study of the needs in cancer across the province, set its own priorities, realizing the needs in Thunder Bay, London, Kingston, Ottawa and Toronto, and which stated that this expansion was among their priorities.

Mr. Germa: Supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Final supplementary.

Mr. Germa: Was the minister not aware that the research department of Princess Margaret Hospital has stated emphatically that its facility has already reached an optimum size, and that any further expansion would reduce its expertise?

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I think some of these facts should be verified with the people in the business. I certainly didn’t get that impression from the people at Princess Margaret who pressed me, directly and through their association, for these changes. It’s recognized without question as one of the finest cancer treatment facilities in the world.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Rainy River.

PRICES IN NORTHERN ONTARIO

Mr. Reid: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations. Does the minister recall his letter to me in response to my question to him about the higher prices of food and such things in northern Ontario? Can he table in the Legislature the figures that his ministry arrived at for prices of goods and services in northern Ontario as compared to southern Ontario?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, first of all, I do recall the letter and I do recall a similar question asked by the hon. member on a previous occasion. I have not yet received a final report on the study, which is being done by our senior economist. I understand, on a preliminary basis, that the increase in prices in the north has not been as great as that in the south.

But as far as price levels are concerned, I have not yet received a final report. I’ll be prepared to consider tabling it after I have received it and reviewed it.

Mr. Reid: One short supplementary: Can the minister indicate what the differential is? Are we 10 per cent higher in costs, or 15 per cent? Can the minister give us some indication of that?

Hon. Mr. Handleman: Mr. Speaker, I thought I had made it clear that I do not have figures on the absolute levels of prices. I do have preliminary figures on the rates of increase in prices, which indicate the rate of increase in the north is lower than in the south. As far as the absolute levels are concerned, I do not yet have a final report. But I will be glad to look at that.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Wentworth.

POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF CIVIL SERVANTS

Mr. Deans: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a question of the Attorney General. If he was aware that there was a person who was the president of a Progressive Conservative riding association, who had been such since the year 1972, who had been appointed in that same year a justice of the peace, who had subsequently been re-elected president of the riding association, who had actively worked in the last federal campaign, and who lives in the town of Grimsby and who represents the ministry in St. Catharines, would the Attorney General be prepared to go to the Management Board chairman and ask that they change the rules in order that he would be permitted to work in election campaigns, rather than fire him?

Hon. J. T. Clement (Provincial Secretary for Justice): If I knew all that, Mr. Speaker, I’d have the director of legal offices call him and ask him either to fish or to cut bait.

Mr. Deans: A supplementary question, then: Since we’re talking about neither fishing nor cutting bait, would the Attorney General be prepared to take a look at the proposition that people be given their political rights, regardless of their employment in the civil service, rather than go around looking for people to fire simply because they’re exercising their democratic rights?

Mr. Lewis: The Minister of Culture and Recreation (Mr. Welch) will lose his seat if that man is turned out.

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I think the question now becomes one of a philosophical nature.

Mr. Breithaupt: Only for Tories.

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Clement: In the present situation described by the member for Wentworth, I take it that he might well have somebody in mind.

Mr. Deans: I have indeed.

An hon. member: Why doesn’t the minister ask the member to name him?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Therefore, the present legislation, as I understand it, is that if a person fulfilled those functions, as the member has described, then that individual would be in breach of the legislation as it presently exists.

Mr. Deans: Will the minister try to change it and make it sensible?

Hon. Mr. Clement: I will take a look at it in terms of coming forward with recommendations in due course. But the law, as I understand it today in this province, is that a situation as depicted by the member, if it existed, would in fact put that particular person in a position where he would have to take either one position or the other.

Mr. Lewis: Not philosophically.

Mr. Speaker: The Minister of Agriculture and Fond has the answer to a question asked previously.

CHICKEN IMPORTS

Hon. W. A. Stewart (Minister of Agriculture and Food): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday I was asked a question by the member for Huron-Bruce. May I repeat the question for Hansard’s benefit, Mr. Speaker?

“Is the minister concerned that the importation of chicken into Ontario has increased 500 per cent in the past year and exports are down 86 per cent during the same period? Does the minister attribute this particular increase to the increase in vertical integration in the broiler chicken industry in the Province of Ontario?”

I took the question as notice, Mr. Speaker, indicating that I wanted to check the figures. I’m sure my hon. friend must have been misadvised as to the figures, because I know of no source of figures indicating imports or exports pertaining to a provincial situation anywhere in Canada.

I have at hand the source of the figures of the US chicken imports into Canada obtained from Statistics Canada. We have checked to find out that the information is not available as to provincial breakdowns.

Rather than there being a decrease in chicken exports, Mr. Speaker -- am I bothering somebody? --

Mrs. M. Campbell (St. George): His colleagues are bothering him.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: -- I wondered if my hon. friend was aware of the fact that there has been a 949 per cent increase in exports in the last year, and that there has been an import increase of something like nine million lb into Canada in the same period of time. I’m sure my hon. friend must have been misled in the figures that were provided to him.

Mr. Gaunt: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: A supplementary?

Mr. Gaunt: Since those figures came from Beryl Plumptre’s office, would the minister communicate the correct figures?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Speaker, if my hon. friend wants to use Beryl Plumptre as a source of reference for figures, he should contact Beryl Plumptre. I use Statistics Canada as a source.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Carleton East.

Mr. Bullbrook: One source for the minister and one for the member for Huron-Bruce.

BILINGUAL DRIVERS’ LICENCES

Mr. P. Taylor: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Transportation and Communications. Can the minister say why, at a time when the Ontario driver’s licence has apparently undergone a major redesigning to accommodate this business of donor declarations, it is not going to be bilingual?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: Mr. Speaker, the Ontario driver’s licence did not undergo a major revision in order to put the donor card on it. It is merely an attachment to it. The hon. member will see that when he has a chance to observe the licence. There is no major change.

Mr. P. Taylor: Is there any plan to bilingualize, if there is such a word, the Ontario driver’s licence?

Hon. Mr. Rhodes: That matter is under consideration along with the other forms in my ministry.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Cochrane South.

POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF CIVIL SERVANTS

Mr. W. Ferrier (Cochrane South): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of Health. Is the minister aware that the person in charge of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan office in Timmins is a vice-president of the South Cochrane Conservative Party? If so, is the government going to fire him?

Mr. Lewis: Is the government going to fire him?

Mr. Deans: Is the government going to fire him too?

Mr. Lewis: Isn’t the whole bloody thing ludicrous?

Mr. Deans: Bring it into the 20th century.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. It is difficult to hear the questions.

Mr. Breithaupt: The Conservatives are going to lose their entire party.

Hon. Mr. Miller: Mr. Speaker, I was not aware of it, but I am now.

Mr. Martel: Don’t bother being aware of it.

Hon. Mr. Miller: On the assumption that the facts given are correct, and I trust they are, I would like to know and I will check to find out whether that job is specified in our list of those that can’t be held.

Mr. Deans: Change the law.

Mr. Martel: Change the law.

Hon. Mr. Miller: I have personally asked members of my ministry to drop their party affiliation when they were members of the Conservative Party.

Mr. Lewis: Why? How silly the minister is.

Mr. Ferrier: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: As a supplementary, would the minister not make an effort to change the law rather than to try to have people fired for that kind of thing?

Mr. Lewis: For political reasons.

Mr. Martel: Why did the government fire poor Mrs. Dowdall in Sudbury?

Mr. Speaker: The member for Peel South.

ODOURS FROM LAKEVIEW SEWAGE PLANT

Mr. R. D. Kennedy (Peel South): Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Minister of the Environment. Can he advise the progress being made in remedial action in correcting the very offensive odours emanating from the Lakeview sewage disposal plant? It is very disconcerting to the residents in the area. It seems that it has been going on for a long time.

Hon. W. Newman (Minister of the Environment): Mr. Speaker, at this particular plant, the Lakeview sewage disposal plant, there was an upset to the digesters by means of an industrial discharge.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Hon. W. Newman: We had to put the material into some lagoons to deal with it.

Mr. Breithaupt: Send it to Hope township.

Hon. W. Newman: We are treating it with 100 tons of lime and about two tons of sodium nitrate to keep the odours down. This will be done on a continuous basis until we get the sludge in the lagoons back to the plant process and we are working on this as quickly as possible to speed it up. The new treatment facilities of the plant are now in operation and as fast as we can empty these lagoons and get the material back to it we will.

Mr. Kennedy: A supplementary: Is there any indication just when “as quickly as possible” might be? It is very serious in the area. The opposition thinks this is humorous but I assure the House that it isn’t.

Mr. Reid: In the fullness of time.

Mr. R. F. Nixon (Leader of the Opposition): It must be serious.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. J. F. Foulds (Port Arthur): Now the member knows what it is like being on the other end. I thought he was the guy who communicated for the back benches of his party.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. W. Newman: Mr. Speaker, we realize the inconvenience it is causing the people in the area; that is why we have a continuous treatment basis at these lagoons. I can’t give the member a firm time but certainly as quickly as we can get the lagoons treated and the sludge back to the plant, we will get it done.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): The member should go to Happy Valley.

Mr. R. F. Nixon: Push him.

Mr. Breithaupt: Right into the lagoon.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): Meanwhile he must hold his breath.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ottawa East.

DRIVER PENALTIES

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, I have a question of the Provincial Secretary for Justice and Attorney General. If my friend from Downsview can shut up maybe I can complete this question.

Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Attorney General: As a reasonable individual, doesn’t he think it is time he should approach his counterpart, the hon. Otto Lang, and try to get some consistency in the penalties under the driving laws under the Criminal Code and under the Highway Traffic Act, so we don’t place drivers in a position where they might be sent to jail by a provincial court judge, but allowed to drive by a county court judge, who is supposed to be presiding at a senior court?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I think the matter described by the member is something which existed or was created perhaps two or three years ago with the amendment to the Criminal Code. That matter, I understand, has to some degree been resolved now by amendments to the Highway Traffic Act so that confusion is not created in the mind of the accused at the time he is receiving punishment at the hands of the court. As the member knows better than I, on the one hand a judge would give a restricted licence and on the other hand suspension would be given in most instances under the terms of the Highway Traffic Act and not under the provisions of the Code. Here is the judge giving a temporary driving order under the Highway Traffic Act, which, in effect, says it is mandatory that the man shall lose his licence. There was no provision there for temporary driving privileges.

Mr. Roy: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Is the minister not aware that some county court judges, despite the changes made in the Highway Traffic Act, are still giving intermittent terms of driving privileges, especially for offences appealed from a provincial court judge? Apparently they are taking photocopies of the driver’s licence for the individual even though he submitted the original copy to the department. Doesn’t the minister think it is time that should be corrected so he doesn’t make the judicial system and the legal system appear to be an ass in this province?

Hon. Mr. Clement: Mr. Speaker, I’m not suggesting for a minute that it appears to be made an ass in this province. Most of the suspensions are dealt with under the provisions of the provincial traffic code, be it the Highway Traffic Act in Ontario or similar legislation in the other provinces, and the Criminal Code recognizes that. I suggest with the greatest of respect, and I’m not being partisan, that should have been recognized at the time the federal legislation was amended to provide for the temporary imposition of driving penalties -- that is, allowing them to drive on a temporary basis. I am advised there was no consultation between the federal Ministry of Justice and this province certainly at the time that enactment went through. Hence the development of the case law which proceeded, I believe, up to the Supreme Court of Canada and eventually resulted in amendments brought in by my colleague under the Highway Traffic Act.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Stormont.

TEXTILE INDUSTRY

Mr. Samis: Mr. Speaker, a question of the Minister of Industry and Tourism. I would like to ask him why he considered it necessary to single out the textile industry in his recent widely publicized interview, by saying, “I wouldn’t invest a plugged nickel in that industry.”

Hon. C. Bennett (Minister of Industry and Tourism): Mr. Speaker, I was not singling out the textile industry. I think if the member would read the article he would see I spoke also of the electronics and electrical industry as well.

Mr. Samis: Well, he singled out the textile industry.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: I beg to differ with the hon. member. If he is reading the same press release that I read, it referred to two industries in particular that were having great difficulty in Ontario and in Canada, the electronics and electrical industry and the textile industry, and stated that the tariff situation in this country affords them no protection whatsoever.

An hon. member: That’s right.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: My ministry has consulted with the textile owners, with the management and with the unions --

Mr. Samis: Why did the minister have to say that?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: If the member will be quiet for a moment, we will answer the question --

Mr. Foulds: We? What does that mean?

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): That must have been the corporate “we.”

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: -- and with the unions in my boardroom on more than one occasion and reviewed with them --

Mr. Lewis: His boardroom?

Mr. Foulds: Why didn’t he say “office”?

Mr. Lewis: Excuse us, when did he get his appointment?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: You know, Mr. Speaker, it’s so typical of those who have a very limited knowledge of what’s going that they now speak before they hear the plan.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. We are wasting valuable time.

Mr. Lewis: Come over to my cubicle some day.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Well, the member for Scarborough West will never have one, so he doesn’t have to worry about that.

Mr. Lewis: Not a boardroom -- the minister is right.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: At least when we have his people in, we believe in treating them with decency and courtesy and in hearing their side of the story as well.

Mr. Cassidy: Before kicking them in the face.

Mr. Foulds: When did the minister ever go into the plants and hear their story?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Cassidy: Ask the Minister of Transportation and Communications about the men down in Norfolk.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Does the minister wish to answer further?

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Yes, Mr. Speaker. I have said very clearly that the textile industry and the electrical industry are in difficulty. We have consulted -- both Ontario and Quebec, along with Manitoba -- with Mr. Gillespie and his people in Ottawa to try to find some new measures to afford a degree of protection and availability for the domestic market to improve their position and to cut off some of the imports that are coming into this country and have reduced the possibilities of making a strong industry, which employs approximately 150,000 people in this province. It is my job -- and I say this openly and honestly here today -- to try to get Mr. Gillespie to bring in some measures and quotas that will give that industry the viability it should have in Ontario.

Mr. Samis: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Does the member for St. George have a question?

Mr. Samis: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: No, we have wasted -- I don’t mean wasted -- I’m sorry.

Mr. Samis: That wasn’t my fault, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: There is just a very brief moment left and there are three or four other people who wish to ask questions.

The hon. member for St. George.

Mr. Cassidy: The minister was trying to get the unions in that statement, and it wasn’t like that at all.

Mr. Samis: I didn’t ask about the boardroom, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: Mr. Speaker, let me just correct the remarks --

Some hon. members: No, no.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. There was much noise over here and the answer was delayed. I think we should give as many people as possible a chance to ask their questions.

The hon. member for St. George.

Mr. Cassidy: It was no statement. It was a deliberate press release against the unions. It was part of a concerted policy of this government over there.

Hon. Mr. Bennett: The member wouldn’t even know his name unless somebody told it to him in the morning.

Mr. Lewis: The minister is losing control. Relax.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

The hon. member for St. George.

TORONTO BILLS

Mrs. Campbell: Mr. Speaker, my question is of the Treasurer. Would the Treasurer enunciate in this House the policies of this government as they pertain to the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto, in view of the fact that he has been bringing in amendments to that bill consistently and has denied the city of Toronto amendments, pending the Robarts commission report? Could we know what the dichotomy is?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: I fail to see that there is anything in the municipality of Metropolitan Toronto bill, which was introduced yesterday, which needed to await the Robarts report.

Mrs. Campbell: A supplementary, Mr. Speaker: Could I then ask why the ministry concluded that for the city of Toronto to simply add three members to its hydro commission was of such earth-shaking proportions that it had to await the Robarts commission report?

Hon. Mr. McKeough: As I understand it. they wanted to add two members to their hydro commission, which was a request made to us six or eight months ago by the city of Toronto. At that time we suggested to them that was a fundamental decision pertaining to the organization of Hydro within Metropolitan Toronto; we felt that was something that could wait, and informed them accordingly.

I fail to see anything in the Metropolitan Toronto Act, which was introduced here yesterday, which has to do with the basic structure of Metropolitan Toronto. I am afraid, with the greatest respect, I don’t follow the hon. member’s comparison.

Mrs. Campbell: Or in the changing representation?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The oral question period has expired.

Petitions.

Presenting reports.

Motions.

Introduction of bills.

CONSUMER PROTECTION AMENDMENT ACT

Mr. Roy moves first reading of bill intituled, An Act to amend the Consumer Protection Act.

Motion agreed to; first reading of the bill.

Mr. Roy: Mr. Speaker, the purpose of this legislation is to give borrowers and people getting involved in ceaseless correspondence with computers a means to get an effective reply from the computer. The bill will require lenders to answer written requests by borrowers about incorrect accounts within 30 days, and a 90-day period would follow during which the lender could not request payment until the amount owing on the account was settled. Should the creditor fail to correct or explain the error, the amount of the bill would then be forfeited if it was less than $50. This bill would also allow the borrower to bring a suit for damages where damages were at least $100.

Mr. Speaker: Orders of the day.

Clerk of the House: The 11th order, consideration of the report of the standing procedural affairs committee.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Perth.

Mr. H. Edighoffer (Perth): Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say a word or two on this report, having been a member of the committee, and of course having read the debates in this Legislature on the date the government House leader introduced the resolution. I found the discussions in committee most interesting and particularly the results of items Nos. 1 and 2. It seemed these were dealt with fairly easily by the committee and, of course, I believe the report carries through many of the recommendations made by the members of this House in this discussion.

On the matter of substitution, Mr. Speaker -- and I’m referring to substitution of members of the standing committees -- it was decided to have unlimited substitution, which I certainly agree with 100 per cent. The committee discussed many aspects of substitution, but rather than come up with a very complicated solution, it was decided they would try very simply to have unlimited substitution for this session only. Of course, any members wishing to substitute for other members would have to give written notification to the chairperson before the committee commenced its business.

I think this recommendation should be helpful, not only to processing the business of the Legislature but in allowing all members to fulfill their role in committee.

The second recommendation referred to voting procedures. This decision was made by the committee and I believe it followed closely the procedure that’s used here in committee of the whole House. The only difference is that because the substitution is on a daily basis, stacking of votes until the end --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. It seems to me this is the wrong resolution. The resolution we are debating today has to do with the recording of committee sessions, not the matter of substitution. These other matters have been decided by the House earlier.

Mr. Edighoffer: Well, I’m coming to that. It’s all included.

Mr. Speaker: No, this particular report simply had to do with the recording of procedures in the estimates committee and standing committees.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Edighoffer: I believe it is all in the same request.

Mr. D. H. Morrow (Ottawa West): It was all in the same request in the House.

Mr. J. R. Breithaupt (Kitchener): Section 44.

Mr. Edighoffer: There are three sections to the resolution.

An hon. member: When in doubt let him carry on.

Mr. Edighoffer: I think you will find, Mr. Speaker, that it includes --

Mr. Speaker: Order. It’s very brief.

Mr. Edighoffer: I guess I’ve lost the page.

Mr. Breithaupt: It is on page 1182.

Mr. Speaker: It was presented on April 29, and it read:

“Your committee recommends that the sittings of standing committees, with the exception of standing committees considering estimates, be not recorded. If a matter or bill referred to a standing committee is deemed to be of special interest, the consent of the House must be given to have the deliberations of the committee recorded.”

It is my understanding that this is the order that is being debated today.

Mr. Edighoffer: Mr. Speaker, very well, I just don’t recall debating the other. I thought it was all included in this one.

I would just like to say, Mr. Speaker, that I, for one, in the committee -- and I believe many other members probably -- still feel in respect of this motion which is before the House, that records should be kept. It has been shown in the past that many committees have produced much important information -- I am thinking of the Health Disciplines Act and of the elections expenses Act -- and there is no record. I am sure it would be most helpful to many people in the Legislature and throughout Ontario. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Wentworth.

Mr. I. Deans (Wentworth): Yes, thank you.

I think this is a ridiculous resolution, Mr. Speaker, and I don’t understand how the committee came to this conclusion. I don’t know why it is the government is afraid to have on the record the things that are said that are of importance to the people of Ontario. I don’t understand what the point is of having committee meetings if there isn’t going to be a record maintained of the procedures that take place within the committees.

Now, I don’t want to suggest for a moment that there ought to be a Hansard prepared of every committee meeting. But I do think there should be a recording of every committee meeting and that there should be at least one copy of the proceedings on file in the library. There is a reason for it.

The statement “shall, on matters of importance, record them,” means that prior to the matter being referred to a committee somebody in this Legislature has to determine in advance whether or not it’s important or otherwise. That doesn’t make any sense. There is no way to consider it in advance.

Quite frequently the government will bring in legislation, quite frequently there will be a call for a commission to appear before the committee. It isn’t possible to determine in advance whether that legislation or that particular hearing is going to be important.

Therefore, it is surely a requirement of this Legislature that we provide all of the necessary recording equipment first; and then, secondly, that the hearings that are conducted be recorded in order that a year from now -- or two years from now or three years from now -- any commitments that are undertaken are commitments undertaken on the record, that can be checked against the actual performance of whatever group or whatever legislation is being heard at the time.

The costs are not large. I would have understood it if we were talking hundreds of thousands of dollars. But as I understand it, the estimates provided to the committee by Peter Brannan, the chief of the Hansard staff, state that for the set-up of additional equipment in committee room No. 2 -- typewriters and desks -- the cost would be $4,500. If we were only going to record, the additional operator would be $9,000, and that the cassettes would be $2,500. So we are then talking about $16,000, approximately, in order to provide a cassette record of the committees’ undertakings and deliberations.

If we wanted to have a copy kept, it would require an additional $2,500. So that for the total price of maybe $18,000, $19,000, or $20,000 altogether a year, we can have an accurate record of all of the proceedings in that committee room. We could then refer bills to that committee room and refer the hearings of committees to that committee room.

It may be that if we had to, and if it proved to be successful, we could go from there and do one or more of the other committee rooms as they were required.

I just don’t understand how the committee can make the determination that what is said in the House is important enough to be recorded, what is said in the estimates committee is important enough to be recorded, what is said as the estimates are being studied is important enough to be recorded, but what is said when we are deliberating the content of important bills is not important enough to be recorded.

Mr. P. D. Lawlor (Lakeshore): That’s absurd; a bloody shame.

Mr. Deans: And what is said when we hear from the commissions and the boards of government is not important enough to be recorded. I just don’t understand it. The thinking of the government in this regard is evident. It is evident to me that one of the government members told the government committee members they weren’t to agree to recording the goings on within the committees.

As I look at it, if we wanted every single thing done, if we wanted to maintain a complete record of everything, the maximum costs would have been $70,000, but for a minimum cost of less than $20,000 we could have an adequate record available so that any person who was interested could see that record and could have it reproduced as he wished.

I think, Mr. Speaker, that the report of the committee should not be approved and that the committee should be sent back to do its job again, because it has not done it to the satisfaction, I suspect of the opposition at least, and certainly I don’t think really to the satisfaction of a great many of the government members, who surely must understand that what is said and what commitments are undertaken should be undertaken on the record so that people can refer to them. There is no sense in what they propose at all and I don’t for one minute support it.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to say a word on this. What kind of a horse-and-buggy operation is this place? Are they pretending that what we do up here is more important than what happens downstairs? I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, being downstairs on many occasions, the matter is really thoroughly explored. The input from the general public, from the legal professions, the accounting people, from whoever happens to be interested in that area among those who appear before us -- the give and take of that particular colloquy -- all would be of vital assistance to future Houses and to future people in this House.

I think particularly of the private bills committee. Time after time in that committee we set precedents. What was the reason? How did the committee handle a certain matter? Year after year we repeat, ad nauseam, the same performance; gyrating around the same thing, and some people say we did one thing on one occasion or that the reason being given on this occasion was not valid in the previous situation. No one knows; it is all up in the air. How can we conduct parliaments on a basis such as that?

I am not suggesting, Mr. Speaker, that great amounts of money should be spent. I am not suggesting that the record be transcribed in any way, as long as those tapes are kept for hearing; as long as they are available -- at least one copy -- which people do out in their own homes, which children do on tape recordings. This institution can’t find it within its means or its intelligence to spend that much money just to keep a permanent record of the proceedings of the House.

What we did on numerous bills in the legal bills committee, where we really go to work on scappling legislation, where the contents are worked out in area after area; what went into the unfair practices bill, No. 55, was enormously valuable stuff. What the various considerations were, where the law from different jurisdictions was coming; what the reasoning was that caused us to alter paragraphs and delete whole sections and put in new ones, what went on there and what was behind it. It didn’t come back in here for full debate at all; all the hard study work was done downstairs, and in my opinion the work was far more valid, far more efficacious, far more searching in terms of getting into the matter, than anything we do up here on most occasions.

This is a rhetorical debating society, where one gets up and storms and fusses, full of sound and fury, signifying that much. But downstairs, we don’t storm and feud. We try to get along with one another down there; meet their points, trade the various considerations that go into a bill. Therefore we get content; we get quality; we get stuff coming out of there that should be preserved. To have it lost -- it always has struck me as a member of this House, this is kind of an abysm.

When the matter comes forthrightly before us on this occasion, to get $3,000 or $4,000 out of all the money this spendthrift government wastes to preserve the hearings of vital sections of this House, an arm of this assembly downstairs, it turns its thumbs down. What about it? It’s quite incredible in this day. No other parliament worthy of repute on the face of the earth takes that position with respect to its committees.

Certainly in Westminster, which we are supposed to model ourselves upon to some extent, and certainly in Washington, committees wouldn’t dream of holding hearings unless they had a permanent record. Suppose somebody says they didn’t say something on some occasion or suppose they misconstrued or misunderstood? How can we prove it?

Surely, it is the simplest thing in the world, and the least expensive, simply to keep a permanent record. We just set the tape recorder running. The costs are absolutely negligible. We take the transcript down, repose it in the library and, on occasion, if we want to we can go back and see what was said on that particular section of whatever bill it may be.

This doesn’t have to be done on every occasion. There are certain committees which may not want this done and they could express that at the initiation. I would assure members that in private bills we would want a permanent, continuing record.

Our select committees don’t really come to light. There is a transcription made long after the event and in the leisure time of the individuals connected with Hansard. We have, and we insist upon having, a conclusive record which can be referred to by any member of the public or of this House as to what ingredients went into that decision or the numerous decisions made. I consider it important, not just for history but for the ongoing work of this Legislature when these matters may arise with new members in the very near future, that they have this available to them. It’s Neanderthal to do anything else; and if this could be moved back for reconsideration, I think it certainly should, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kitchener.

Mr. Breithaupt: Mr. Speaker, I regret the committee has brought in this particular report so that in the ordinary case none of the functions of the estimates committee will be recorded. During the question period, I asked a question concerning the programme now being conducted by the Ministry of Health with respect to alcohol abuse, and the cost of that programme is some $500,000.

This morning on CFRB, for those members who were up early, within the space of perhaps 20 minutes there were three particular advertisements. One, as I recall, dealt with the Consumer and Commercial Relations programme with the buzzer sound when the person makes a mistake; the second dealt with the summer job programmes; and the third dealt, as I recall, with the home ownership programme. Between those four programmes, the government is prepared to spend probably a total of $2 million this year.

What we are talking about in the financial arrangements here is one per cent of that figure. We are talking about possibly $20,000 to record what goes on in a very important area of this Legislature.

Much is done in these committees. Certainly the importance of the committees is overshadowed by the ambience of this chamber, but let us recall, Mr. Speaker, that we get quorum calls in this chamber from time to time because members are away doing other things. One of the important other things they are doing is involving themselves in the give and take of these committees.

Certainly we need a permanent record, and the suggestion which has been made for the transcription of one or perhaps two or three copies and their deposit in the library of the Legislature is a reasonable balance. No one is seeking the cost of Hansard for all of the reports which we would otherwise receive.

I wonder, really, how we get to what is going to be a matter of special interest. It’s almost as though the chairman, at the start of the meeting, is going to say to the members: “Now pay attention to what we’re going to discuss, because I’m going to appoint the secretary when the meeting is over.” Who is going to keep the minutes and how accurate, therefore, are those minutes going to be?

I recall, Mr. Speaker, that during the five years I was chairman of the public accounts committee, we progressed quite substantially from the early days in which it was presumed that each one of the ministries of government, or boards and commissions, might come before the public accounts committee at some time during the four years of a parliament. It was thought there was a therapeutic effect to having the deputy minister and his or her officials present, because they would see that the committee was anxious to dig into what was going on.

As you are aware, Mr. Speaker, in many cases and on many occasions, the ministers or the deputies who were before us were well aware that the committee, without expertise, without staff, didn’t really know what to ask on many occasions. Much of this has changed since the structure of the report of the Provincial Auditor has changed and now it is much easier to go into matters of particular concern, once some of the ground has been broken. But still we do not record, really, other than in the form of a brief set of minutes, the give and take, the questions and answers, that go on during the public accounts committee hearings.

And, of course we have, as the member for Lakeshore has mentioned, the matters of great concern that arrive before the House through the actions of the private bills committee. I think it’s fair to say that the private bills committee acts, really, as a cross-section of the Legislature. It deals more on a series of concurrent majorities, as individuals decide how they would react to a bill, than certainly do the more formal and recorded votes within this chamber. That kind of give and take is important and the conditions -- why a bill is passed or why it is rejected -- are the sorts of things that would indeed be valuable, not only for members of the House or those who will succeed us some day, but also for political scientists, for persons dealing with the operation of government, and indeed, on occasion, for perhaps even members of the general public.

Now it may be that the boards and commissions find the heat, and perhaps even the light, of the estimates committees or the public accounts committee to be something which they might otherwise prefer to avoid. If minutes are not taken -- if in fact a careful reporting is not there and it’s all left up to the press to record what was said and by whom, then I think we are not going ahead properly and with balance as to the provision of an adequate record.

Surely, the whole reason persons in the public galleries who attend are forbidden to take notes as to what is being said is because of the tradition that parliament will keep its own record. And parliament’s record, of course, appearing, as we call it, in Hansard -- from the name of that gentleman, as I recall, who was the person allowed to publish a record of the House -- these Hansard reports become the bible of the Legislature. They are the accurate report as to what has gone on. We are, however, not accurately reporting, or keeping for our own benefit, what is going on in these other committees.

As I’ve said, Mr. Speaker, the cost is virtually negligible. Even though $20,000 is a large amount, it’s not one per cent of the advertising programme this year in those four areas I suggested. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, it’s not one per cent of the advertising programme this year for the Wintario lottery. That programme is going to be between $1.5 and $2 million this year -- for a programme which apparently is very successful, and indeed may not need much more advertising. But if you’re prepared to spend, as a government, those kinds of moneys on those kinds of programmes, surely one per cent of either of those two areas is worthy for the recording of the debates and the work of this Legislature, as those of us who take it seriously think should be done. Certainly there is a reason.

I would hope that we are at least able to find out, if the comments that have been made are not acceptable, how we are going to come up with a decision as to what is of “special interest.” There may well have to be some motion brought in the House that something be deemed to be of special interest in advance. But it’s going to be very difficult, as the member for Lakeshore also said, “to talk in arrears.”

In other words, once we’ve heard what has come out, we suddenly decide that was of special interest, but of course it is too late to record it.

I don’t think this is going to prove to be either an accurate or a workmanlike way of doing the job. I fear that the recommendation of the committee is not going to add to the value of the deliberations that go on, especially in the estimates committees.

Mr. E. J. Bounsall (Windsor West): Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As a member of this procedural affairs committee, I was not able to be present at the last meeting which brought forth this particular recommendation to the House. Had I been, I would have agreed unanimously with the rest of them that the consideration of this report be placed on the order paper for debate. I would have been one of those people voting against the bringing forward of the rest of the committee report, which says that the sittings of the standing committees, apart from estimates, be not recorded.

We debated this for some three committee meetings and were presented with figures from Mr. Peter Brannan, the chief of Hansard. I just want to indicate again, and in some detail, just how minimal the costs are for what we want for this recording.

If we’re talking only about the recording and storage of cassettes, we do not need additional typewriters or additional desks. So, in fact, we’re looking at a total of $14,500 per year for the recording and the storage of the cassettes -- not $16,000. That $16,000 figure, as previously mentioned from the report by Mr. Brannan, was set up to include typewriters and desks. Simply to do the recording and store those cassettes would cost us only $14,500 per annum.

As said by the previous speaker, the member for Kitchener, it is a pittance in terms of the other expenditures of this government. It is a real pittance for having on the record and stored in the library here, a voice record of what has been said in all of those standing committees.

I look back over the standing committees dealing with bills and dealing with reports from government commissions and agencies and I am appalled, as a new member in the House, dating only from 1971, that some of that valuable material was lost.

It first struck me when the committee was considering the Denture Therapists Act, where we had the leaders of the Ontario Dental Association and various other groups giving their expert opinion as to why things should be done a certain way, what their viewpoint was and why it was that way. All of that material, all of that evidence, was lost, much of which would have been invaluable to have on record.

We’re losing a great historical heritage here by not recording this in some form. History is being made in those committees. Those remarks and those attitudes are invaluable historical comments, if nothing else, and should not be lost to posterity.

We spend a great deal of money on a Heritage Foundation and brushing up and maintaining our older buildings and our other heritage; and yet we decline for an expenditure of only $14,500 a year to keep a record. We throw away all of the expert testimony of people who come in from the outside.

By our throwing it away and never recording it, we must consider it to be really of no account. Well, ifs valuable testimony. It’s going to speak to future generations of attitudes of the day by the leaders of those societies and so on that come in to speak on particular bills. Really, by not recording it we’re saying it’s of no use, it will never be of any historical interest.

Mr. Lawlor: What we do now is completely unimportant.

Mr. Bounsall: That’s utterly ridiculous. If one goes on and further analyses Mr. Brannan’s remarks re costing, which he provided for the committee, here again there are various ways one can break it down. I myself, as a member of that committee and a member of this House, would like to see rather more than just the recording and the storage of cassettes. Mr. Brannan did provide the figure for reproducing it in complete Hansard style, as the estimates are handled and as debates in this House are handled, with complete full-time staff -- not employing part-time staff -- and a full corrected, edited Hansard-type version as we know it. That is only $73,500 per annum. Again, in terms of all our other expenditures around this House in so many other areas, what is $73,500 per annum? Surely we can afford that.

Look at the other expenditures on other programmes, Mr. Speaker. The member for Kitchener has mentioned the advertising the government has been doing in the last few days on the radio, the advertising with respect to the lottery commission which is running much more than that per annum.

Mr. Lawlor: Into the hundreds of thousands.

Mr. Bounsall: Yet we don’t find this important enough to keep. I am not suggesting, as a member of that committee -- and I expressed my view -- that we need the fully edited, corrected Hansard version. I would propose, and did in that committee, that we should have the recording in the committee and one instant Hansard-style copy made available. If one wants to cost that out -- and it’s a case of putting some of the figures together in combination -- to record, reproduce, save the cassettes and produce one instant Hansard-style recording-type document which would be kept in the library comes to a total of $34,500. Someone whom the figure of $73,500 scares can have an instant Hansard reproduction in the library for a total cost of $34,500. That’s with part-time staff.

Mr. Brannan did suggest that it may be impossible to acquire qualified part-time staff and that one might have to hire a full-time staff in order to get the personnel required to do the job properly.

If instead of part-time staff, because of the difficulty of obtaining them, we need full-time staff, we are talking of two transcribers, one offset operator and one recording operator for an instant Hansard-type reproduction. We would not be needing two editors estimated at $16,000 each per annum. So, for all of the full-time staff required for making a recording, storing the cassettes and reproducing in an instant Hansard style, the total price would be $41,500 per annum.

That’s what I would suggest, Mr. Speaker, that we should be at least doing. If we somehow feel, which is ridiculous, that we can’t afford the $73,500, we can at least afford the $41,500 which gives us a competent, full-time staff recording, the cassettes stored and the instant Hansard made and kept. I can’t see why this House, in its Neanderthal way, would decide -- and they are only Neanderthal attitudes that we don’t want any of this.

There are bills that have gone outside the House in committee, other than the denturists bill on which we bad representation before it, for which I would very much like to have seen the records kept. Certainly there were the Health Disciplines Act and various bills which I have sat through in my labour capacity. A record of the Crown Employees Collective Bargaining Act and its subsequent amendments of just this past year, 1974, would be invaluable; and certainly that applies to this winter’s recording of the Workmen’s Compensation Board, in which at one time we had no fewer than 16 officials from the board present, available to answer questions. On many occasions they were giving their detailed, expert, knowledgeable advice on how to process a particular case through the board. There are answers which indicated their attitudes, and what was happening now, and what their hopes and plans were for a change. All of this, unless members of the committee themselves were shorthand artists, could not be kept and recorded even for the next couple of months in order to assist ourselves and the injured workmen who come to us for help in assisting us to help them.

I can see, Mr. Speaker, absolutely no reason why the committee could not have said: “We can afford the $41,500 per year for an instant copy to be kept in the library or even, in fact, the full Hansard recording of $73,500.” I would hope the House, having put the amounts of money in perspective for this very invaluable service, would in fact send this report back to us and say to us in that committee: “Get your priorities straight in terms of the expenditure of money and the need for this very valuable recording as a service to this House and the people of Ontario.”

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Ontario (Mr. Dymond).

The hon. member for Ottawa East.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): Mr. Speaker, I would like to make just a few comments on this question of recording, because I recall discussing it with some of my colleagues and expressing at that time being in favour of recording what goes on in committees.

I don’t want to reiterate comments that have been made by some of my colleagues here about the question of cost, because I can’t really believe that that is a consideration here. My colleague the member for Kitchener has pointed out where moneys are being wasted in other areas and, surely, when we get to the question of cost, the question of cost cannot be a factor when you consider the benefits -- the overwhelming benefits in my opinion, Mr. Speaker -- that will come with the recording of what goes on in committees.

I would only point out first of all that I think it is done on a regular basis in Ottawa; that in Ottawa all their committees are in fact recorded. I may be corrected on this, but as I recall, in looking at legislation coming down from Ottawa one could refer back to the committee where it had been discussed, see the comments that had been made at that time and see the representation from various groups.

To me, Mr. Speaker, the greatest plus in favour of recording committees when we are discussing legislation or otherwise, is that it encourages public participation. In fact, it encourages further participation by members of this House, and this has been mentioned before. I can think of various pieces of legislation where, if the proceedings of the committee had been recorded, it would have been most helpful to us and some of them have been mentioned here. I recall spending months on end discussing the Health Disciplines Act, which is an extensive piece of legislation; we had representation from various groups and I can see the recording of such committees being very helpful.

This government states regularly; and ministers are going out in the hustings and, in fact, the cabinet is going around the province, saying that they want to encourage public participation. Really, that is when you can encourage public participation -- when you record what goes on in the committees so that the public may have a record, and sees and can read what goes on in the committees, sees what other groups have to say about legislation, and can see what members have to say about legislation.

I can recall, for instance, discussing legislation dealing with planning and development in Ontario where, again, we had extensive discussions and representations made. I think it would be most helpful if all these were recorded. I cannot see the cost being a factor in considering not recording what goes on in a committee.

Of course, another plus in encouraging the recording of what goes on in committee is that it helps the public understand the legislation. I quite appreciate we have some sort of rule in law which prohibits courts from looking at the proceedings of the House to interpret a piece of legislation. I consider this to be passé; I can’t understand why judges would not look at the proceedings of the House in interpreting legislation. But the fact remains that very often in groups -- for instance, the Law Society of Upper Canada -- when these people are trying to interpret the law and trying to advise a member of the bar of what the law says, because sometimes it is not clear from the wording, we could go back to the proceedings of the committee and see at that point what in fact was meant by a particular piece -- what the committee, or what the minister meant when he was talking about a particular word here, what the minister had in mind when he proposed a particular amendment, or whatever. In our records of the debates here, we can read other points of view about what the law might well mean. This is also true when we are discussing these things in groups or when we have seminars. I find that when we go back to the committee, very often it helps us to understand the law as it is in its final form. In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, the recording of the committees would be of some help there.

Eventually, I suppose, we’ll probably have a vote on this, or the majority of the members on the committee will oppose the recording of committees, but apart from the question of cost -- and I say that cannot be a factor in this -- I cannot really see why the government wouldn’t want to record these committees. In fact, I can’t see why the government would not encourage the recording of committees unless it is afraid that its participation in committees sometimes leaves something to be desired, If one went back to recordings of the committees, one would see that most of the input in the committees came either from groups or from individuals from the opposition parties. In fact, the recording of committees would encourage government members to participate in these committees.

In conclusion, Mr. Speaker, I would say that unless other reasons are given apart from cost, the only reason I can deduce as to why the government wouldn’t want to record committees is that it is somewhat afraid of being embarrassed by the contributions made by certain members or by the ministers, who sometimes come unprepared before these committees dealing with legislation. I can’t see any other reason, and I would encourage all members to support the recording of what goes on in these committees.

Mr. Speaker: The hon. member for Sudbury.

Mr. M. C. Germa (Sudbury): Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words on the report of the procedural affairs committee. I, too, cannot even envisage that the reason the committee brought in a recommendation not to record the proceedings was based on financial considerations. The financial considerations are so infinitesimal as to be not even worthy of speaking about them.

It’s a strange situation we are faced with here, I think, in that committees do have to function within the rules of the Legislature. In fact, it has been determined in the past that the procedure in the committee shall follow the rules of the House. Now, the rules of the House indicate that no one can make a record of debate in the House other than the government itself and those people charged with making records. Therefore, I would presume that the same rule in the House would apply in the committee.

We have here a situation where the government will not make a record, and at the same time, the government will prohibit someone else from making a record. That’s the interpretation we have to take from the rules of the Legislature, and I think that is ridiculous. As far as the rules of the House are concerned, while Hansard should be commanded to make a record of the House, I don’t think anyone else should be precluded from also making records. But that is the situation as it exists today.

I have had the privilege and pleasure of sitting on the public accounts committee for the past 3½ years, and I think the revelations which came out there when ministerial people came before us to answer certain embarrassing questions should be recorded for time immemorial so people can go back and try to understand why certain events transpired and the evidence that was presented by certain people.

It brings to my mind a couple of situations, I think, which should be recorded. They had to do with the time when the Ontario Northland Transportation Commission chairman and his general manager were before the public accounts committee. The flavour of the debate which took place in that room should have been recorded for all time; it would have indicated why the chairman had to resign a few months after the report was made. The mismanagement and the evasive answering at that time were just something to behold, but in 00 way, in no manner and in no fashion did the report which emanated from the public accounts committee convey the flavour of the struggle that the committee had in dealing with that chairman and that particular general manager.

That’s the kind of information which I think should be available for people to read, because I am sure if I stood here today and revealed the trouble we had in getting information from those two people, the members would not believe it. It was something to behold and I think the written record would indicate that, but at least the public accounts committee does make a report to the House.

Let’s take into consideration another event in which I participated. It was when the Workmen’s Compensation Board was called before the standing committee on resources development. This was a very revealing hearing which went on, I believe, for about four or five days and I attended because I was particularly interested in the events which transpired there. As has been indicated before, there were many revelations which came to light there of the inconsistencies and the attitude and the manner and fashion in which the board had been reluctant and redundant in carrying out its duties.

Those kinds of things are very important, and I am appalled that the government would not want to make and take record of all of this information which is made available to it for a very limited cost.

The world is very automated now. It is not as though we have to hire multitudes of people in order to take record. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, you know that almost every kid in town has a cassette tape recorder and he goes around making a record of certain events and sounds, and here the government of Ontario in 1975 sees fit to allow all of this debate, all of this information, to go to waste.

Mr. Lawlor: Mr. Speaker, I understand that you are one of the people responsible for this purblind stand.

Mr. Germa: I would recommend, Mr. Speaker, that the government explain why it is reluctant --

Mr. Lawlor: I am surprised at you. You are brighter than that.

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Mr. Germa: Is it the embarrassment which might come out of these boards and commissions? There is no doubt about it, the revelations have been embarrassing and are an embarrassment to this government, but I think that is a poor way to protect itself. I think what we should do is throw a light on where the rot is and then we can clean it out much better after we know exactly where it is after we have heard all the testimony.

I think we would be doing a service to the people of Ontario if we could keep on record and cite certain instances where certain people have not fulfilled the duties and functions that they were being paid to do, and this is where the evidence comes out. So I have to reject the report of the procedural affairs committee, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Riverdale.

Mr. J. A. Renwick (Riverdale): Mr. Speaker, I subscribe to the substance of most of the comments which have been made by the members of both the Liberal Party and this party in connection with the resolution. I want to make a suggestion as to how we can eliminate an expense and substitute the expense which would be necessary in order to provide this service for the recording and publication of the debates and discussions which take place in the standing committees of the Legislature, and indeed in the select committees of the Legislature to the extent that that is possible.

My suggestion for the elimination of expense is that each member of the assembly receives a bound set of volumes of the debates of each session of the Legislature inscribed with his initials or name on it, and I am quite certain that most of us have no use whatsoever for those bound volumes.

Mr. F. Laughren (Nickel Belt): I read them at night.

Mr. Renwick: If one has a large enough night table, he might be able to collect them, but for practical purposes very few of us either want to have them adorning the walls of our homes or have the space to store them in the basement, nor do we ever for practical purposes refer to them.

Mr. V. M. Singer (Downsview): I am just reading the member’s speech right now.

Mr. Renwick: I am talking about the big bound black volumes. I would suggest that, of course, each caucus office would require two or three bound sets of the debates for the purposes of their caucus operations, and I am quite certain that each member of the assembly would like to receive the bound volume of the index of the debates, so that should he have occasion to want to refer to the debates by going to the library or to his caucus office, or in later days when he wants to go to the local library to read the debates, he has a ready reference as to what immortal words he said at the time on a particular point. I’m quite certain one would want to have the slim volume of the journals of the House for each of the members.

I think that the cost of publication, in leather or leatherette bound volumes, of all of the proceedings of the estimates committee and of the debates of this House, for distribution to the 117 members, is an expense which we could well do without. If I had to weigh in balance whether or not we should incur that expense, or whether we should incur the expense of having a few copies of the reports of the standing committees of this assembly and of certain of the select committees of this assembly available for our own use and for the use of the public and for reference for scholarship and study purposes, there’s no question where my inclination would go.

I don’t know what those five or six volumes of the debates, and four, five or six volumes of the estimates committee cost for each member but I would suggest it’s a very substantial amount of money which we could well readily forego. There may be the odd member who feels he needs to have his set and presumably we could make a special exception, provided he bought them at his own expense. That would, perhaps, deter anyone from having them.

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Instead of seven-hour Throne Speeches we could cut it down to one hour; that would save. If we had 40-minute speeches instead of five hours that would save a lot of paper, too.

Mr. Renwick: That’s right; that’s another way. The member could: perhaps suggest that at another more appropriate time.

Mr. Ruston: I think it’s very appropriate now.

Mr. Renwick: I was going to suggest that in the interests of economy, which is at the heart of the New Democratic Party’s attitude toward government -- rather than that of the Liberal Party’s view about the expenditures for government -- we should forego those printed volumes and substitute the kind of printing which is suggested by those who have spoken.

Mr. Lawlor: Surely members agree to that?

Mr. Renwick moves that the report be not now received but be referred back for reconsideration in the light of the comments made in the course of the debate.

Mr. Morrow: Mr. Speaker, before you put the motion, perhaps other comments from this side of the House should be heard and you could put the motion afterwards. That would be quite in order.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): How is the member going to react to it if he hasn’t heard it?

Mr. Speaker: I am not placing the motion at the moment. I’m going to read it and then I’ll allow further debate. I have two or three other requests from speakers on the motion.

The member for Ottawa West.

Mr. Morrow: I would like to speak at this time, Mr. Speaker, not only on the motion but also in the general debate on the subject matter, as chairman of the procedural affairs committee.

First of all, I should like to be fair to the member for Perth. In the first part of his speech, Mr. Speaker called his attention to the fact that he was debating the wrong report. He was really referring to the whole resolution and was just covering the first two points. I understood the procedure he was following until he reached the last part of that resolution.

As he remembers, there were three parts to the resolution and two reports came to the House. There was sort of an interim report on April 22, I think, and a week later, last week, there was the final report.

The first report, Mr. Speaker, dealt with the first two points of the resolution, and that’s been mentioned here this afternoon. It dealt with substitution in the standing committees; and secondly, the matter of stacking the votes. I might say that all members of the committee were unanimous in agreeing to that first report in this respect. We came to an agreement on that which I think satisfies all the members of the House on the request they made at the time they were asking the leader of the House for a resolution on these matters.

Mr. Lawlor: I don’t agree. I think it should be free substitution at any time.

Mr. Morrow: With all due respect to the member for Lakeshore, it was the feeling of the members of the committee -- and I think I can speak here fairly well for all members of the committee and all the parties -- that it would sort of cause some confusion -- confusion as to who was going to substitute for whom at the particular time if we didn’t know about it ahead of time.

Mr. Lawlor: It’s for the benefit of the chairman, that’s all.

Mr. Morrow: If any particular member wishes to speak on a particular subject in an estimates committee, or even at a standing committee, whether it be private bills or some other, he should be able to do so -- this was a point by the member for Wentworth. He wanted to be able to speak, if a private bill came in from the city of Hamilton, for example, although he is not a member of the private bills committee. In this way, some other member in his caucus who is not interested perhaps in the matters of Hamilton, who comes from western Ontario or northwestern Ontario, could say, “Very well, I will give you my place today,” and this particular member would substitute for him.

All we ask is that the chairman be given the name of the person, so that when he gets up in the committee to speak, the chairman is aware that he is substituting for such and such a member at this particular time. Each day, new substitutions may come in. We make those substitutions each day. I can see no difficulty there whatsoever. It was a matter of trying to have some order in the particular standing committee that day, and if the chairman knows ahead of time who’s going to be the substitution, he is not going to call somebody out of order.

Mr. Lawlor: That one was half sensible. What about this one?

Mr. Morrow: I can see the member’s point that somebody can run in at any time and be able to get up and talk on any particular subject in any committee.

Mr. Lawlor: No, I mean the item on recording proceedings.

Mr. Morrow: I would like to remind the members that the second part of this report mentions the fact that if there were any special purposes -- and this was mentioned before by one particular member speaking -- that if there was any particular subject referred to standing committee that needed special inquiry into or special people to come before that particular committee, the House could direct such to be done. It is only the House that has the budget and that would assume the budget for it, because Mr. Brannan doesn’t have the budget. His particular budget is all taken up with what he is doing now. He has no particular budget to go ahead with a lot of other meetings. This House would have to give him the budget to do so.

Mr. Bounsall: There are supplementary estimates.

Mr. Morrow: These would have to be supplementary estimates and something the government would have to approve.

What I am trying to point out here is that it wasn’t only the costs. I appreciate what the hon. member for Windsor West said about the compromise which they tried to arrive at of just having a sort of mini-recording of what went on. He said here something like $41,500 would do the job of having it taped and somebody to dub in the names of each person who spoke and to have, I think he said, an instant translation. Now that is where a lot of cost comes in. But I can’t see any value for it, unless there is an instantaneous translation, quite frankly, so that the members would have it and use it here in the House whenever the debate is pursued on that particular meeting in the standing committee. Otherwise, if the bill or whatever was discussed is enacted into law before one has a translation, what good is a recording that is gathering dust at that particular stage?

Mr. Lawlor: Why not play the tape back?

Mr. Bounsall: Does that figure include instant Hansard staff?

Mr. Morrow: Yes, instant Hansard. That’s what I understood; the instant Hansard staff was included, and the storing of it.

Mr. Lawlor: And what is wrong with that?

Mr. Morrow: I personally don’t see anything particularly wrong about that. I’m only one member of the committee. I’m the chairman of the committee, and I had to go by the division on this particular subject. I’m personally against large costs though. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m personally against getting into a very large Hansard debate setup for this.

Mr. Lawlor: Yes, I think we all are.

Mr. Morrow: But I do want to emphasize the point that it was Mr. Brannan’s knowledge of the mechanics involved that I think swayed the committee when he said: “For this year I think we’d better go along with what we have.” Because, he said he couldn’t do it if the estimates committees were sitting at the same time.

Mr. Lawlor: But if he had $41,504 he could.

Mr. Morrow: He would have to equip a second committee room and stock it with equipment and staff it in order to get it done.

Mr. Bounsall: But that’s included in the $41,504.

Mr. Lawlor: Wouldn’t it be a good idea if we reconvened and talked it over some more?

Mr. Morrow: I might say that we did discuss that. We did discuss it there. Whenever he brought that out it was discussed, and finally they came to the particular conclusion they did.

I only want to close with these words. I have no particular apologies to make for the final conclusions of the committee. They thought that we would carry on the way we have been doing. We thought we had reached full agreement on the first two matters in the resolution and that -- although there was some division in this -- if there was any particular subject that came before any standing committee the House thought needed recording, it could be mentioned at that time. The House leader could so direct that it be done, and of course supply the money to have it done.

Mr. Lawlor: Why don’t you take this matter back, in line with the resolution, and give it a little more consideration?

Mr. Morrow: I’m of the opinion, quite frankly, that we gave the matter sufficient --

Mr. Lawlor: That’s the member’s point of view.

Mr. Morrow: -- study for this particular year and I’m opposed to the matter being referred back to the standing committee on procedural affairs for further consideration.

Mr. Lawlor: The member for Lambton (Mr. Henderson) should speak up and justify his existence.

Mr. Speaker: Are you ready for the question? Oh, the member for Durham.

Mr. A. Carruthers (Durham): Mr. Speaker, I want to comment briefly on this resolution.

Mr. Lawlor: If there’s anything hog-tied, anything purblind --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Lakeshore has had his opportunity.

Mr. Lawlor: When the hell is the hon. member going to wake up? He’s in the 20th century.

Mr. Morrow: I’m coming to that. To clear that particular point, I wanted to make the point that a few years ago, if one wasn’t a member of any standing committee, one wasn’t allowed to talk. One sat outside of the circle, and if one wanted to address the committee, one asked the chairman. The chairman asked the committee, “Will we hear from the member?” It was very seldom refused, but he had to ask the committee, and if they saw fit to have the member address the committee he was invited to do so. It’s really been quite an evolution from those days.

I’m going to proceed, Mr. Speaker, with regard to the matter of this last report, which seems to cause some disagreement among the various members of the House. I think perhaps one point was missed and that was the matter of facilities in the standing committee. If members will notice, the resolution said, “What improvement should be made in the physical facilities for the meetings of such committees?”

That point wasn’t mentioned, and I should bring to the attention of the House that we did agree we should have a certain format there, a certain seating plan. I drew up a certain plan and suggested that the Clerk give it to the Ministry of Public Works, which I understand was done. That has already been carried out and is now functioning in the private bills committee.

We have a fairly good seating format there now and the person addressing the committee has a podium and addresses the chair and the other officials at the head of the room. The members of the caucuses of the various parties have their particular rows and people visiting the committee or others waiting to speak sit outside the committee area, on the left. I think that’s an improvement in our seating format in our private bills committee. And this particular format will pertain to all standing committees.

Mr. Lawlor: Mark it at half for the member.

Mr. Morrow: I should say to the hon. member for Kitchener -- I don’t see him here -- who referred to this particular debate as turning down the recording of the estimates committees, that that is not right. This only pertains to our standing committees. The estimates committees are already being recorded.

I would only say that this matter was given pretty lengthy consideration for over two days. We had more than two full sessions on it and everyone was given an opportunity to speak. No one was inhibited, and no one was directed that I know of. I certainly wasn’t directed. I gave each and every member an opportunity to speak freely. We had the benefit of the officer in charge of Hansard for this particular House as well as the estimates committee, Mr. Brannan, who gave us of his knowledge and expertise on this subject.

I should point out to the members who have spoken that, although we did discuss costs, the decision that was finally arrived at didn’t pertain only to costs. That was only a part of it. I think the main reason the committee divided on this particular subject was the mechanics of it, and it was because of what Mr. Brannan said to the committee with regard to the mechanics of it. He pointed out very clearly that he had neither the staff nor did he have the equipment to record meetings of all standing committees of this House --

Mr. Bounsall: But he gave us the figures for the cost of increased staff and equipment.

Mr. Morrow: -- particularly when the estimates committees were sitting.

Mr. Bounsall: It means the equipping of one more room.

Mr. Morrow: He said: “I could do it, but I would have to be given several weeks’ notice in order to get a room equipped, to get staff hired and to get the thing going in order to record the meetings.”

Mr. Bounsall: Who is arguing?

Mr. Morrow: That was the main reason, I think, for turning down the particular proposal. True, costs were considered. The hon. member for Ottawa East is not in his seat, but I would like to tell him about costs. He referred to the House of Commons debates all being recorded. We know that all the meetings down there are recorded, whether they are standing committees or special committees or any particular meeting that’s on. But we certainly don’t want to get into several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of portable equipment and getting into a multi-million dollar Hansard budget which they are into --

Mr. Lawlor: Nor do we.

Mr. Morrow: -- in order to have all standing committees and all other meetings of this particular House recorded.

Mr. Bounsall: An extra $73,500.

Mr. Morrow: Now that is really a big operation.

Mr. Lawlor: It doesn’t have to be translated.

Mr. Morrow: And we don’t have the facilities here to have it done.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Carruthers: I am very pleased that has been recorded in Hansard.

Mr. Lawlor: I’m proud it’s being recorded. Thank heavens this is being recorded.

Mr. Carruthers: How did the member know I wasn’t on before?

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. The member for Lakeshore has his opportunity. Order, please.

Mr. Lawlor: Go ahead and speak.

Mr. Carruthers: All right. I’m not opposed to everything in this House by any means, but --

Mr. Lawlor: He voted against it in the committee.

Mr. Carruthers: -- I think we have to look at these things in a practical manner.

Mr. Lawlor: What’s wrong with that Cro-Magnon?

An hon. member: Throw that leprechaun out.

Mr. Carruthers: That was a bright statement now. I’m glad that’s been recorded.

Mr. Lawlor: Really, the hon. member is incredible.

Mr. Carruthers: Before a member starts to speak that member makes a judgement.

Mr. Lawlor: A bunch of Tories getting our approval --

Mr. Speaker: Order, please.

Mr. Lawlor: I’ll keep silent. Let’s get on with the work in this Legislature. That’s what counts.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Speaker: Now can we address the resolution, please?

Mr. Carruthers: If the member for Lakeshore wants to make a speech I’ll sit down and go on after.

Mr. Lawlor: I’ve made my speech already.

Mr. Carruthers: Very good, very good. There are just two points, for the benefit of the member for Lakeshore. They are minor points, maybe, but I think they should be considered. I agree and perhaps I’m very much in favour of recording in Hansard the debates in this House. I am for recording of the estimates as well.

Mr. Lawlor: God, that is a really generous gesture.

Mr. Carruthers: But there is one aspect of this that I think should be considered, and that is I’ve heard a great deal from the member for Ottawa East on public participation and free speech. Don’t let us forget that we, as members, have parliamentary immunity, but the general public coming into standing committee do not have that privilege. Maybe I’m wrong in what I’m saying to the member for Lakeshore, but I think that if I were a member of the public coming into a standing committee, I would have certain reservations about making statements which were going to be recorded in perpetuity, because they could be referred to and they could be used against one at some time.

Mr. Lawlor: They could be used under any circumstance; recorded or not it’s just as much as liable.

Mr. Carruthers: That’s discrimination, as far as I am concerned. It interferes with my free speech.

Interjection by an hon. member.

Mr. Carruthers: Well, that’s right.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Does the member mean he objects to backing up his words?

Mr. Carruthers: Well, statements are made down in the standing committees that could be recorded and could be used. I am just pointing that out for consideration. Now maybe it is not a good point. Maybe it is not a good point. Maybe it is not a strong point.

Mr. Lawlor: It is a poor legal point, I can tell him.

Mr. Carruthers: Well, the member, being a lawyer, would know.

Mr. MacDonald: It is a poor layman’s point.

Mr. Carruthers: But I think it is worthy of consideration. Of course, there has been mention here of the cost, and I think the member for Ottawa West did point out --

Mr. Lawlor: What they do in that situation is suppress it.

Mr. Carruthers: -- the mechanics of the operation, and it was pointed out to us at the committee that here we have to have a staff; and our standing committees are staggered, they don’t sit regularly. It means we have to hire occasional staff, who may be untrained in the skills of recording this type of an operation. Frankly, $41,000 -- I think that was the figure mentioned by the member for Windsor West -- that’s only an initial step. Let’s be practical about these things. We all know that would only be the start. It would be only a matter of time until we progressed and --

Mr. Lawlor: They spend $50 million without turning a hair.

Mr. Carruthers: -- we take further steps along the line of recording until we have a full scale programme of recording the hearings of the standing committees.

Mr. Bounsall: We could save $41,000.

Mr. Carruthers: That’s the only point I wish to make, Mr. Speaker, but I think it’s a point which must be considered -- the rights of the citizen coming in before a standing committee; his right of free speech could be interfered with.

Mr. Lawlor: Want him to come in and tell a lie?

Mr. Carruthers: Well, I think that’s democracy.

Mr. Lawlor: Democracy?

Mr. Carruthers: It’s not fair for me to have the right of parliamentary immunity and another individual coming into that committee not having that right. All right, if he comes in --

Mr. Lawlor: You can say that is not important, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Carruthers: The only agreement that I would consent to in that respect would be that any individual coming before that standing committee would have the right to parliamentary immunity; and if he wished to have it recorded, all right, if he didn’t wish to have it recorded, it should not be recorded. But it’s a complex affair.

Mr. Lawlor: What I said at the beginning applies double now.

Mr. Carruthers: Have I said anything really out of the way? The member for Lakeshore thinks I am an obstructionist or something. I am for democracy.

Mr. Lawlor: Only the proposition he is making is obstructionist.

Mr. Speaker: Order, please. Will the members speak through the chair, please?

Mr. Carruthers: Go ahead and make a speech.

Mr. Lawlor: That’s the most absurd statement I have heard in a long time.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Kent.

Mr. J. P. Spence (Kent): I have a few words in regard to this report of the procedural affairs committee. I must say that the chairman of the committee was most fair. He never tried to influence any of the members of that committee and I was very pleased that we did reach agreement on some substitution. That is something that I thought should have taken place many years ago. However, we did make gains, I thought, as an opposition member, in that the committee gave consideration to substitution.

As for the second part of the report, in regard to recordings or instant Hansard or tapes, we had Mr. Brannan before that committee and he gave us an outline. It surprised me how much the cost would be, but actually I didn’t weigh the costs. Over the years that I have been here, I have sat in on a considerable number of standing committees and I must say it has surprised me how many times in my life that I have seen members from all parties vote one way in a standing committee and when they came into this Legislature they voted another way. That was one of the reasons I was in favour of recordings, or tapes or something to record how the members voted one way in the standing committees and then came into this House and voted another way. That was one of the reasons I had voted in favour of some kind of a recording, so that we’d know in the future, if we wanted to, the dates an event took place in this House and which members voted in the standing committee.

It was somewhat assuring to me that the chairman said that on any special occasion we could come into this House and get permission, if it was satisfactory to the Premier or to the government, for a recording of that committee meeting.

I would like to have seen even a tape available. However, we didn’t win that point. But I do say that I think there should be some recording; even a tape would be most satisfactory to me.

Mr. Morrow: Point of order, Mr. Speaker. I would like to point out to the hon. member for Kent that I didn’t say committee members could come into the House and ask that it be done, and ipso facto, it was going to be done. I said that the House could direct that it could be done.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Lambton.

Mr. L. C. Henderson (Lambton): Mr. Speaker, I’ve enjoyed the debate this afternoon. I would like to concur with the chairman of the committee to the effect that this was fully debated in the committee, and a majority decision in the committee was reached.

Now, the debate this afternoon has not brought out anything more than what was brought out during the committee time.

The fact hasn’t been brought out this afternoon that if the records were needed for some particular bill we could arrange it; as we know we had the Hydro hearing, we know that we had the Workmen’s Compensation Board, and we know that on different occasions the records have been kept by special consent of the House.

As one of those committee members who dealt with this particular part of the report, it appeared to me that if reporting was needed on certain bills, bills of great importance to the people of this province it could be done. Mind you, Mr. Speaker, I’m convinced that all bills are important to the people of this province; to some part of this society. I am convinced that the estimates committee could be dropped for the necessary days, and the process that is set up for the estimates committee could be used on an order of the House. I fully realize this would deduct from time in the estimates committee.

The hon. member for Riverdale has suggested that the committee reports are not important to him, only here in the House. I’m maybe not putting that quite correctly for the member.

Mr. Lawlor: We all don’t have to have individual copies.

Mr. Henderson: That is what he has suggested. I would have to agree with him that there are a great number of bound copies that we all have that our family would like us to move out some place.

Mr. Renwick: They are a bit of a nuisance.

Mr. Henderson: However, I consider that some day someone may have some use for them. Maybe he’ll have the right solution, maybe another $100,000 could be cut off the estimates if this were used. But in view of the debate that was before the committee, Mr. Speaker, and in view of the debate today, I would have to inform the House that I am still convinced that the committee has turned in the right report. I would have to oppose the amendment.

Mr. Speaker: The member for Ontario.

Mr. M. B. Dymond (Ontario): Mr. Speaker, this topic this afternoon could really be the subject of a most interesting philosophic debate. I would love to have an opportunity at some other more appropriate time and place to debate it on philosophic grounds with my good friend, the member for Lakeshore.

Mr. Lawlor: This is the time; this is the place.

Mr. Dymond: I like to listen to the hon. member for Lakeshore. With great respect and with a good deal of affection, Mr. Speaker, I often picture him, as I hear him waxing eloquent -- as he did this afternoon -- I like to picture him as an ancient Roman senator; but he’s not ancient, of course.

Mr. Carruthers: Agreed.

Mr. Lawlor: Definitely not Roman.

Mr. Dymond: An ancient Roman senator standing on the steps of the forum, clad in toga with a palm coronet, holding forth. I believe he could have swayed the multitudes. But the multitudes were small in those days, and public participation was a very simple matter relative to our present-day society.

Mr. Lawlor: I admire Cicero enormously.

Mr. Dymond: But at another time we will discuss this philosophically.

There are two points, Mr. Speaker, which have impressed me this afternoon in this discussion. One is cost, and this has been dealt with rather fully already; but I would be false indeed, sir, to my origins, if I let it go without saying something about it.

Somebody said: “It is just $34,000”; “It’s just $41,500.” As I recall it, the least cost actually added up to about $75,000, but I suppose we might say it is just that. That brings back to my mind a one-time noted figure in the political life of this country who caused his government a great deal of embarrassment by saying: “What’s a million?”

Mr. Stokes: We’ve got a fellow over there saying “What’s four or five billion?”

Mr. Dymond: I have to say in fairness, however, the member for Riverdale offered a practical solution, particularly now when every one of us has a carton about this big with six huge volumes of printed material. So help me, I agree with him, Mr. Speaker.

Delete that “So help me”; it’s not good English.

I have to agree with him, Mr. Speaker. What purpose do they really serve? Whether or not this House would consider stopping sending a copy of Hansard to each member, I can’t tell; that’s for the House to determine.

The next thing that was important -- and I think the whole argument hinges on this -- is the great emphasis which has been put on what was said in committees and the value of this to posterity. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if my good friend the member for Lakeshore didn’t have tongue in both cheeks when he spoke. I am not sure if he used the words “the value to posterity” but this ran through the warp and woof of what he said. I repeat, sir. I wonder if he didn’t have tongue in both cheeks when he said it.

Mr. Lawlor: No, my emphasis was not on history. That was some of the other speakers. What has posterity done for us?

Mr. Dymond: Would the member for Lakeshore like to make another speech?

I grant you, Mr. Speaker, my legal friends have a very great interest in this kind of thing, and with great respect to them -- I hope I am not treading on legal ground where angels should fear to tread -- they consider precedent weighs very heavily, and I have no doubt it does. Really, sir, if you read Hansard, if you read the records of this House -- and I have done from time to time -- so help me, sir -- again bad English -- I am ashamed of what I myself have said on occasion in this House. The grammar is awful; the English is worse. Of course, I am accused of being unable to speak very good English, but I manage to muddle through.

Mr. Lawlor: The member has first-rate Scotch.

Mr. Dymond: Nonetheless I do wonder if we haven’t put far too much emphasis on this business of keeping records of every meeting in this House for the benefit, for the value, of what was said.

The matters which go to the standing committees culminate in what is reported to this House, and really that is the nub of the matter. What was the decision? What was the final outcome?

If we want everything said about the bill with the exception of the public input, if I am quoting right, it can come back to committee of the whole House; something we saw done and something we saw questioned just a few days ago. Everything said in committee of the whole House is recorded. If that is what is wanted, if we are really serious about wanting a record of what is said in the debates, let’s bring these things to the committee of the whole House.

Mr. Lawlor: We cannot bring them all in.

Mr. Dymond: On matters of special interest; a good deal has been said about them and all of us who have sat in this House, even through one parliament, sir, are fully cognizant of the fact that certain matters of great importance, of great moment, are referred to committees. On occasion it has been determined in such things that there will be a regular Hansard record and I am quite certain this would be done again. For that reason the committee put it in the recommendation to the House.

One thing I have noticed particularly over perhaps the last eight or 10 years, is the annual recurring debate on committees and on committee work. I was very disappointed, when the standing rules of the House were revised and rewritten, that so little attention had obviously been paid to the procedures of the operations or the functions or the rule of standing committees or other committees. I would certainly hope, sir, that before this matter comes up again, before this House should sit in another session, this whole matter would be referred to a committee given the responsibility to review and, if necessary, revise the rules of the House to the end that the role and function procedure governing committees would be more clearly spelled out.

The chairman of our committee and both members of the committee from this side of the House have already said that the matter was discussed very fully. We spent two sessions of the committee on this -- longer than we did on any single matter -- because since the House in its wisdom referred it to the committee we believed it was an important matter.

As my friend from Kent pointed out, the chairman did not try to muzzle us in any way. Everyone had an opportunity to speak his piece. The decision or the conclusion of the committee was to recommend as it did to the House. I can see no sense in supporting the motion proposed by my hon. friend from Riverdale, because I can see no other outcome. I would like to think I don’t have a closed mind on this, but it was so thoroughly discussed and debated and considered that I can’t see any further outcome.

Mr. Speaker: Ready for the question?

Mr. Morrow moved that the report of the standing procedural affairs committee be adopted.

Mr. Renwick moves that the motion be amended by striking out all the words after “that” and substituting therefor the words, “the report be not now adopted but be referred back for reconsideration in the light of the comments made in the course of the debate on this motion.”

The House divided on Mr. Renwick’s amendment to the report of the standing procedural affairs committee, which was negatived on the following vote:

Ayes

Nays

Bounsall Braithwaite Breithaupt Campbell Deans Dukszta Edighoffer Ferrier Gaunt Germa Good Haggerty Laughren Lawlor Lewis MacDonald Martel Newman (Windsor-Walkerville) Nixon (Brant) Paterson Renwick Riddell Roy Ruston Samis Singer Smith (Nipissing) Spence Stokes Taylor (Carleton East) Worton -- 31.

Allan Apps Beckett Belanger Bernier Brunelle Carruthers Clement Downer Drea Dymond Evans Gilbertson Grossman Havrot Henderson Hodgson (Victoria-Haliburton) Hodgson (York North) Irvine Jessiman Kennedy Kerr Lane Leluk MacBeth Maeck McIlveen McKeough McNeil Meen Miller Morningstar Morrow Nixon (Dovercourt) Nuttall Parrott Potter Reilly Rhodes Root Scrivener Smith (Simcoe East) Smith (Hamilton-Mountain) Snow Stewart Taylor (Prince-Edward-Lennox) Villeneuve Walker Wardle White Winkler Wiseman Yakabuski -- 53.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Speaker, the “ayes” are 31, the “nays” 53.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the amendment defeated.

The House divided on Mr. Morrow’s motion that the committee’s report be received and adopted, which was approved on the same vote reversed.

Mr. Speaker: I declare the motion carried.

Report agreed to.

Clerk of the House: The 12th order, House in committee of supply.

ESTIMATES, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD (CONTINUED)

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The Chair can’t hear the hon. member for Huron-Bruce.

An hon. member: Tell him to speak up.

Mr. M. Gaunt (Huron-Bruce): If I turn on my microphone I might make myself heard.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The hon. member for Huron-Bruce has the floor.

Mr. Gaunt: Mr. Chairman, when I concluded the other night I was talking about the need for a farm income protection plan. I had put it in the context of the fact that farmers were experiencing greatly increased input costs. They contribute a great deal to the overall economy of this country. I think at that time I cited the figures for the operating costs and the kinds of purchases that the farmers made and how they had such an impact on the provincial economy.

Perhaps, at this point, I can mention the tremendous money input that farmers have into the Canadian economy by indicating to the House that in 1974 farmers paid $6 billion in operating costs, $1.5 billion for feed and $1 billion on machinery, and agriculture used eight per cent of the gas in this country and 12 per cent of the diesel fuel.

Mr. J. A. Taylor (Prince Edward-Lennox): We should have more rural representation.

Mr. Gaunt: I had indicated that as far as I was concerned -- with the tremendous impact that farmers have on the economy, both provincially and federally -- that society generally is prepared to recognize the problems in the fact that they are experiencing diminishing returns and greatly increased costs. Society recognizes there is a real value in having a domestic farm base.

It is interesting to note that at the beginning of this year the farm input price index was up to 202.8 and the consumer price index was only 175.8. Both these indices started at 100 in 1961. That simply means the cost of producing food has gone up a lot faster than the cost of living. I think consumers, and people generally in the province, are recognizing that stable production is preferable to instability both for producers and for consumers.

I think the reasons for an Ontario Farm Income Protection Act are fairly obvious. I’ve outlined them previously but I just want to recap them very briefly. I think one of the main reasons is that farmers can no longer assume all of the risks involved in producing food. They have now come to the point where they can’t survive by simply tightening their belts. I mentioned that the other night. Rapidly rising input costs, coupled with falling commodity prices, underline the necessity for risk sharing if farmers are to continue producing.

Secondly, I think society, generally, demands we have optimum food production so we be adequately fed as well as other parts of the world. This will not be forthcoming unless society shares the farmers’ risks. I think the income protection plan provides this kind of assurance to farm people.

I also think there has been, over the past year or so, an increasing resistance, on the part of consumers, to higher food prices. This makes it increasingly more difficult for farmers to get a fair and adequate return for their efforts from the marketplace.

I am sure there are other reasons we could talk about -- such as the fact that food has become a political tool, and all of the connotations that arouses -- but I think those really are the three basic reasons why we, in this province, have to come up with some form of guaranteed income protection plan for our farmers.

This money isn’t going to be a handout, in the sense that it is going to make farming easy, that it’s going to guarantee the farmer a lot of money. I think it is simply a wise use of taxpayers’ money. It is a small down payment to stabilize an industry that is important to all of us. Payments can be considered as consumer subsidies, even more so than producer subsidies. They should be considered in that light.

I talked about the $20 million, and the fact it wasn’t adequate in my view to do the kind of job that should be done. I underline that once again.

A stable agricultural industry and a happy farm community are in the best interests of all of us -- not only here in the province but in all of Canada. As our population and our market grow, as the Treasurer (Mr. McKeough) would certainly agree, we will need to produce more food. I know the Treasurer likes to eat as well as anybody, and, if he is going to eat adequately, he is going to have to ensure he provides enough money in his budget to provide farmers with the kind of stabilization and support which is so necessary to this province.

Mr. A. J. Roy (Ottawa East): It is obvious, from his physical appearance, that he has a great appetite.

Mr. Gaunt: It is going to cost us something in the province, I think it is going to cost us something at the federal level and I think it is going to cost the farmers something. We have to be prepared to recognize that and face up to it. To try to achieve domestic stability in an unstable world at zero cost is an impossible dream. It is going to cost the government something. It is going to cost society something. It is going to cost the farmer something. I think the cost is worthwhile insofar as trying to bring some stability to the situation.

To recap, I think the minister has to come in with a more adequate stabilization plan than has been evidenced so far. This would guarantee financial viability. It would ensure that farm income at least equals the realistic production cost established for each commodity.

I would hope the minister would rethink this particular programme. Having rethought the programme over the next few weeks, I hope he will make the appropriate adjustments in the plan. Our obligation, as I see it, is to assist the agriculture industry to realize fair returns for its labour, or its investment, and to maintain a fair relationship between prices received by farmers and the costs of the goods and services that they buy, thus to provide farmers with a fair share of the provincial income. That has to be our goal. That has to be our commitment. What we need in this province is a will on the part of the government to see that those goals are achieved.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for York South.

Mr. Roy: The next Minister of Agriculture is going to be the member for Huron-Bruce.

Mr. D. C. MacDonald (York South): Mr. Chairman, I was sorry I was away from the House last Thursday when these estimates began.

I noted that the minister twitted me more for my visit to Romania. He’ll be interested to know, on the very day on which he began the estimates, I happened to be visiting, as part of a very full day, a tractor factory at Ploesti where they manufactured some 80,000 tractors this year, 70 per cent of them for export. Some are shipped to an assembly plant in Saskatoon and a distribution point in Edmonton. By the end of this year, an assembly plant will also have been established somewhere in eastern Canada to meet the markets of Ontario and Quebec. So, I was not too far away from the problems of agriculture at that point.

Hon. W. A. Stewart Minister of Agriculture and Food): We are interested in what you would be able to tell us.

Mr. MacDonald: However, I went through what the minister said with some degree of relish because I thought perhaps I had missed something. I was profoundly disappointed.

The minister lamented about the state of the beef market. He had no solutions. I think ministerial lamentations are not going to help the beef producers these days.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Well, we will be interested in yours.

Mr. MacDonald: He had some $25,000 in credits that were going to be underwritten by the Province of Ontario.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Million.

Mr. MacDonald: Did I say thousand? My apologies -- $25 million in credits that were going to be underwritten for farmers who are making a start in the Province of Ontario, at prime rate plus one per cent.

But, the significant thing is, if both of these items are dealing with symptoms of the basic problem in agriculture -- namely, the lack of credit and the general plight of one sector of the industry, the beef producers -- the minister offered virtually nothing. In fact, I’ll have to read it carefully to see whether he even had passing reference to what theoretically might become finally a fundamental grappling with the problem in agriculture, namely the whole income guarantee proposition which has been announced. The fact of the matter, Mr. Chairman, as I pointed out in detail in dealing with the estimates a year ago, is that this government has no long-term policy for agriculture. Nobody from the government side, including its chief spokesman for agriculture, has ever enunciated a long-term programme for the problems of agriculture. You just respond to the crises as they emerge. You respond to the pressure as it becomes irresistible. The policy becomes piecemeal. It is a classic in ad hoc-ery.

Indeed, the two particular projects the minister thought were announcements were two further bits in the ad hoc-ery. As a result, agriculture is in a state of decline in the Province of Ontario. The OFA brief this year documented in considerable detail the relative decline of agriculture within this province. True, Ontario is becoming an industrial province, and, as a part of the whole of the economy, agriculture inevitably is going to become smaller. That is no reason why agriculture in Ontario should become a smaller part of the national agriculture production. There is no reason why Ontario should be producing less and less of its own needs yet that is the case.

Secondly, agriculture is in crisis. It’s not a new crisis. It’s an old and familiar crisis. Having gone through years that almost created a state of euphoria with the minister a year or two years ago because of rising prices, we find we are back to the old situation traditionally faced by agriculture -- of costs rising relentlessly, almost in a skyrocketing fashion, and with prices tending to drift along and indeed in many instances to go down.

Last year I suggested a framework -- cornerstones I describe them -- of a long-term agricultural policy. I challenged the government to come to grips with some of these things. Interestingly enough, the first one -- on which I laid the greatest stress -- was the need for stabilizing of farm income, the need for some kind of an income protection programme so that agriculture wouldn’t be on a boom and bust cycle in the future as it has always been in the past.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: When did you do that?

Mr. MacDonald: In my leadoff to the estimates last year.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: I thought you read my speech to the federal minister.

Mr. MacDonald: You mean last week?

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Oh, no, last year; because that’s what I said.

Mr. MacDonald: You made that speech after you read my speech and listened to me in the House. We have been talking about the need for, and procedures whereby you can achieve stabilization of farm income and give income protection. The proof of the matter, of course, is when we elect governments they do it. They don’t sit on their fat fannies and continue to talk and make speeches.

Mr. Roy: Gene Whelan has made you look good.

Mr. MacDonald: The reaction of this minister last year when I made these proposals -- particularly the emphasis on the fact that the Province of Ontario could and should move into an income protection programme -- was to shelve the matter and say that that belonged to Ottawa.

Even more significant was the reaction of the man who was then aspiring to become assistant to the minister and subsequently did -- namely, the hon. member for Middlesex South (Mr. Eaton). I’ shared a meeting with him up in Durham in which he dismissed as socialist garbage from those western provinces the proposition of an income protection programme. The farmers of Ontario weren’t interested in that kind of thing. What a difference a year makes.

There has been an interesting sequence of events that I want to draw to the attention of the minister. Last fall the OFA annual meeting found themselves stood up by a Liberal cabinet minister from Ottawa at relatively the last moment. It was Donald S. MacDonald, the keynote speaker on energy, which they recognized as one of their major problems. So they looked around for a pinch hitter and the pinch hitter they got was Dave Stupich, the Minister of Agriculture from BC.

An hon. member: A good man.

Mr. MacDonald: All he did was to detail what the Province of BC did, instead of just talking about the problem of stabilizing farm income. He presented it to a group of farmers in Ontario whose ideological approach and whose general inclination was one of scepticism with regard to this whole thing.

He got a standing ovation. He was bombarded with questions throughout the whole night. Clearly the thing had a profound impact and within a matter of some six to eight weeks -- perhaps 10 weeks --

Mr. Roy: Back to BC.

Mr. MacDonald: -- the top body of the OFA had endorsed the matter in principle.

If there is one thing that will make this minister move it is when he discovers that the pressure is becoming irresistible. He decides where the farmer is going -- he is a Tory equivalent of Mackenzie King. You find out where the mob is going and then you go out and lead them.

Mr. Roy: That’s not fair to Mackenzie King.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s his concept of leadership.

Mr. Roy: He is turning in his grave right now.

Mr. MacDonald: He had heard what was happening in the OFA and the federation made its announcement. Therefore something had to happen, particularly since it was very clear from by-elections and from general polls and things of this nature that the Tory fortunes were languishing seriously -- and no more seriously than out in the rural areas that have traditionally been their centres of strength.

As I surveyed the situation, I was persuaded that the government was going to come in with something by way of a deathbed repentance on the eve of a provincial election. I was so persuaded of it that when I spoke in Paris at a nominating convention about the middle of February, I predicted that the minister would bring in a farm income protection programme and it got considerable play in the press. True to my predictions, the minister had the announcement in the Throne Speech.

Mr. J. E. Stokes (Thunder Bay): He is so predictable.

Mr. MacDonald: Yes.

Mr. Roy: Ask him if he is running again.

Mr. Stokes: Is the minister running again?

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. MacDonald: Let me say this. I have many differences with the minister, but how he is used and restricted in terms of really doing a job for the farmers is rather a sad thing to see, because he is not a free agent. He’s a captive of the business-dominated Tory government. But I’ll tell you this --

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Now I know your imagination is running away with you.

Mr. MacDonald: -- by way of a compliment, if you’ll just not interrupt. If you move out of the picture, take a look at those serried ranks and there isn’t a man who knows one end of the cow from the other, hardly.

Interjections by hon. members.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. MacDonald: I can quite see the Minister without Portfolio as the tsar of the next provincial election and the Tory machine sitting down with the Minister of Agriculture and Food and saying, “Look, Bill, I know you want to retire; I know you deserve retirement; I know you have been a dedicated servant in this ministry for a long, long time. But we’ve got nobody to replace you. You’d better stay.”

Interjections by hon. members.

Hon. J. White (Minister without Portfolio): On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, my plea is not exactly that. I am hoping against hope that the member for York South will run again so we can defeat him at the polls.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member doesn’t have a point of order.

Mr. MacDonald: Is that right?

Hon. Mr. White: So I ask you formally to run again.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member for York South will continue.

Hon. Mr. Stewart: Mr. Chairman, I think we have strayed from the estimates just a bit.

Mr. Roy: Attaboy, John. Take out all those dirty tricks in that speech.

Mr. MacDonald: Mr. Chairman, as you know, there is a great distance between general professing of objectives such as we got in the Throne Speech about an income protection programme --

Mr. Roy: It’s going to be a dull speech.

Mr. MacDonald: -- and the reality when it unfolds.

The first great disillusionment, of course, was the budget. In the budget, we had $20 million. I understand that at meetings across the Province of Ontario the minister and many other people who pose as spokesmen for the government are saying that that doesn’t mean anything at all -- if they need more, it will be more. They just put it in the budget and, you know, you can go back to the Management Board and everybody knows the Management Board just ladles up money without any pressure being put on it at all, and they can get far more money.

Even if that were true, Mr. Chairman, it’s an interesting indication of this government’s seriousness in coming to grips with a multi-million-dollar industry like agriculture in the Province of Ontario -- what they put in the budget was relative peanuts. What was the reaction? The reaction was magnificently summed up by Gordon Hill. His description of it in an article in Farm and County was that the thing was beginning to appear as a cruel hoax. Not my words, his words -- a cruel hoax.

At this point, Mr. Chairman, I say to the people of the Province of Ontario and particularly the people in rural Ontario, don’t let them be seduced as they have so many times in the past by the Tory party. When I read about the super group -- what is it called? PC Squared -- that organization and the tsar of the election campaign it presides over in preparing to recoup the fortunes of the Conservative Party in the next provincial election --

Mr. Roy: Headed by John White?

Mr. MacDonald: I’ll read it if I can just find the clipping here.

Mr. Roy: It’s going to be a dull speech once he has finished with it.

Mr. MacDonald: I read in it an interesting comment to the effect that, “Agriculture and Food Minister William Stewart is holding a series of luncheons across the province with food producers.”

An hon. member: Kraft, here we come.

Mr. MacDonald: That may mean Kraft, it may mean Canada Packers, it may mean a selection of tried and true Conservatives from farm organizations who are more Conservative than they are farmers and therefore can be seduced once again. But the minister is part and parcel of this whole effort to try to win back the farmers of the Province of Ontario who are beginning to catch on to the government and its inadequacies. When you have one of the top farm leaders of the province describing this whole final effort at grappling with the basic problem of agriculture as a cruel hoax, I think the warning is out to the people.

Mr. G. Samis (Stormont): They have seen the light.

Mr. MacDonald: Why is it a hoax, Mr. Chairman? I just want to analyse it in some detail. In the first place, the provincial proposal is not an independent proposal that this government is willing to move with on its own. It’s not taking the initiative. It’s going to piggyback on the federal proposal. It is sort of going to free-ride on the federal proposal.

Now, that federal proposal, which is now before the House of Commons, is one in which there have been some changes in the designated products; no very significant change there. They have moved up from 80 per cent to 90 per cent of a payment. The historical basis of that payment is going to be reduced to five years rather than 10 years, and anybody who knows anything about the problems of agriculture today will know that historical indexing offers no price protection unless it is fully and fairly related to today’s costs of production; not to five years ago or 10 years ago.

Once again, the comment of Gordon Hill was that what they have done is just five years behind the times in terms of their proposal, rather than 10. And there are the comments of Charles Munro, the leader of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, to the effect that this whole project in Ottawa had been dreamed up in that ivory tower without any consultation with the farmers at all. So we still don’t know what is the formula for indexing and what specifically might be done.

The significant thing however, Mr. Chairman --

Mr. R. F. Ruston (Essex-Kent): Mr. Chairman, I am afraid we don’t have a quorum.

Mr. E. R. Good (Waterloo North): Four Tories, five Tories -- six. We need more than that.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: What do you mean, “more than that”? You can’t count.

Mr. Good: Tories aren’t interested in agriculture.

Clerk of the House: Mr. Chairman, I see a quorum.

Mr. Chairman: The hon. member will continue.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: Shame on you.

Mr. Ruston: I told you to sit down.

Mr. P. Taylor (Carleton East): They were lying down; they were sleeping. Can’t see them behind the desks.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You never noticed that.

Mr. MacDonald: But the significant thing, Mr. Chairman, with regard to the federal stabilization legislation, is that the old legislation had within it the power, the flexibility, to have moved beyond the 80 per cent to 90 per cent to 100 per cent or even to 150 per cent. It was really an Act that could be implemented in accordance with regulations or with decisions of the ministry and the cabinet, which was very flexible in its approach.

Now, that flexibility might be a good thing, but it leads one to wonder what really is the difference between the amendments that have been brought into the Agriculture Stabilization Act and the old Act, since the old Act offered many of those powers when and if the government was ever in a position, or ever desirous of doing something more meaningful.

On the basis of the last 12 months’ experience. for example, it can be seen that the stabilization programmes which the federal government have brought in, instituted, were of an ad hoc nature; they were designed to meet particular problems at a particular time.

The Agricultural Stabilization Act was, in truth, irrelevant. It neither imposed real obligations on the government, nor did it restrict the government’s freedom of action. There is no reason to expect that the amendments proposed in the present bill will make any significant change in that situation.

But there is the basis upon which this government is going to move in. It is going to base the Act on the federal proposals. In addition to that, it is going to have what is described as the top-loading procedure -- namely that Ontario’s action will be to add to the 90 per cent payments that may be made for any designated product by the federal government out of funds that will be made by the Province of Ontario.

The minister -- when he deigns to speak about this; he didn’t in his introduction -- perhaps can bring us up to date as to what is emerging in negotiations with Ottawa. As I understand what has happened, Ottawa has indicated very clearly that it won’t permit a province to top-load by adding to what the federal government has done unless there has been agreement among all of the provinces and the federal government with regard to the level in which the top-loading might go. If any province chooses to go beyond that level, then the federal government will immediately move in and reduce its contribution by whatever excess the province puts in.

Indeed, I think there has even been a threat that if a province exceeds the levels agreed upon they will withdraw their whole 90 per cent altogether. In short, it’s a very precarious kind of basis upon which to build a programme in the Province of Ontario. The point I want to make, and perhaps it’s the only point I can make between now and 6 o’clock, is that this is an important enough issue that the government cannot play politics with it.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You are.

Mr. MacDonald: It is not the kind of thing -- why am I playing politics?

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You are playing politics instead of talking about the real issues and the real problems. Why don’t you be constructive?

Mr. Samis: What’s not real about the farm income plan?

Mr. Chairman: The member for York South has the floor.

Mr. MacDonald: What are you talking about? Every time you open your mouth the ignorance flows out.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please.

Mr. MacDonald: Right.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: You are the fellow who doesn’t know anything about farmers.

Mr. Chairman: Order, please. The member for York South is speaking.

Mr. MacDonald: The farmer from Scarborough who moved down to Prince Edward county is interjecting his views into the picture here.

Mr. J. A. Taylor: I know more about farming than you will ever know.

Mr. Chairman: The member for York South will ignore the interjections and will continue.

Mr. MacDonald: I shall attempt to abide by your instructions, Mr. Chairman. They are very wise. The interjections weren’t worthy of attention. I made a mistake.

What I was saying when I was so rudely interrupted is that the Province of Ontario, if it is serious about coming to grips with this basic problem of income in the industry in this province, should move on its own. It has a model of moving on its own. They’ve done so in BC. I was interested to see a comment by Mr. Jack Hale, the manager of the OFA in the April 8 issue of Farm and Country who had been out to BC. He came back and reported that the BC plan is working so well that Agriculture Minister Stupich said that 90 per cent of producers will be eligible for protection under the plan by the end of this year.

The point I want to make, Mr. Chairman. is that this is a voluntary plan. Here was a government that had the courage and the initiative to move and provide a framework within which, with the assistance of the government, farmers could protect themselves from the boom and bust of the past. And, having moved, the farmers themselves have volunteered to opt into the plan so it is now said that by the end of the year they’re going to have almost a miracle of achievement; 90 per cent of the farmers themselves will have come in.

I suggest to you, Mr. Chairman, that kind of thing will happen in the Province of Ontario. The kind of reaction across the Province of Ontario at the moment, of meetings being conducted by the OFA and other organizations, is an indication that the view, for example, of the member for Middlesex South, flow parliamentary assistant, that the farmers of Ontario wouldn’t be interested in this kind of socialist garbage is just nonsense.

An hon. member: Some people work.

Mr. MacDonald: Just nonsense. The only way to force the federal government to come up with a really effective price stabilization programme for agriculture is for the Province of Ontario to move on its own as I asked last year and I reiterate again. Don’t just wait for Ottawa. You don’t need to wait any more than BC waited for Ottawa. BC’s plan is going to proceed toward its great achievement --

Mr. J. A. Taylor: It is waiting for Ottawa.

Mr. MacDonald: -- while the Ottawa plan is more or less irrelevant in terms of coping with their problems out there.

Mr. R. Haggerty (Welland South): Mr. Broadbent is holding it up.

Mr. MacDonald: If the Province of Ontario and the Province of Quebec, which is seriously considering this matter, were to move as BC has moved you would be in a position to force Ottawa. Ottawa would have no alternative but to come up with a more effective programme. You would force it into a financing programme. Indeed, it would force them into a programme which is going to be more meaningful in terms of meeting the costs of production and in terms of putting a floor under the kind of drop which characterizes agriculture pricing procedures so often.

The only way to halt the decline in the relative position of agriculture in Ontario as compared with the rest of the country, the decline that was documented by the OFA in its brief this year, is to put agriculture on a firm basis so that people who are in it now, or whom the minister is trying to attract to it, will know they are going to have some assurance of an income that will, at least, cover their costs of production. That can be done.

It can be done by this government moving itself. It doesn’t have to go through endless consultations, negotiations and pleadings to Ottawa. It is the only way in which you can forestall the trend to the almost unbelievable proposition -- projected by people who are knowledgeable in this field -- that if Ontario continues to import a growing percentage of its food needs, some 60 per cent of those needs will come by importation by the year 2000. The proposition that Ontario, long regarded basically as an agricultural province, should be importing 60 per cent of its food needs some 20 or 25 or 30 years from now is an intolerable one. It’s a prospective monument to the failure of this government, to its basic failures with regard to agriculture.

But I wrap it up just simply by saying to the minister, there is no excuse and there is no need for wasting the next few weeks to find out what Ottawa is going to do. indeed, if he wants Ottawa to move in a really effective way, if he wants to strengthen the hand of Gene Whelan -- who is as much a captive of a government that has no sympathy with agriculture, just as the minister is a captive of a government that really isn’t sympathetic with agriculture -- if he wants to strengthen Gene Whelan’s hand, move in the Province of Ontario along with BC, and let Quebec come into the picture and they’ll have no alternative but to quit kidding and to really come to serious grips with it.

Mr. Chairman, I have about four or five other rather major points to deal with and perhaps this is an appropriate point to pause for the supper break.

It being 6 o’clock, p.m., the House took recess.